Fifth Time's The Charm
by amandajbruce
Summary: There were five times FitzSimmons tried and failed to pass their field assessments, but in the end, it didn't matter.
1. Chapter 1

"_Fitz!"_

_He grinned, mistaking her fear for congratulations, though he hadn't actually got the door up yet, and flinched when she launched herself at him, ending up with three red splatters on her black t-shirt. Fitz turned without thinking and shot the other agent point blank, emptying the rest of his bullets into the other man's vest before dropping his gun._

"_Simmons?"_

"_Griffin's right - I did not expect - that hurts. Oh god, that really hurts."_

_She sat down, looking at the splatters down her side and across her chest, having trouble catching her breath._

"_Jemma." Fitz knelt next to her while Blake and Griffin gaped at her._

"_There's still two enemy combatants left. Open the doors, Fitz."_

-o-

_Nearly 10 years earlier..._

Leopold Fitz and Jemma Simmons were two of the brightest minds that had ever walked the halls of the S.H.I.E.L.D. Science and Technology Academy for new recruits. They were handpicked by the head of the Academy, Agent Weaver herself. She had watched them from the time that each of them had entered their university programs, though they were both still in the throes of puberty. Agent Weaver had no doubt that separately these two would be the crown jewels of the S.H.I.E.L.D. research and development teams in a few years. She had no idea that together they would be near unstoppable, except for one tiny thing – there was no way either of them would ever be _ready_ to work in the field.

-o-

"I'm sorry, you would like me to schedule you for what, exactly?" Agent Weaver looked back and forth between the pair of fresh faced students in front of her.

They had been at the Academy for exactly one year. Just one. They were barely adults. And what they were asking her was almost ludicrous. Except that together they tied for the highest marks in Academy history. Ever. They were well outperforming their classmates, and they had been steadily outperforming them since they got there. They had both tested out of many of the first level required courses and were well on their way to leaving the Academy years ahead of their classmates.

"We'd like to take the field assessments that are offered at the end of term," Simmons hurriedly explained. "We know it's rather early-" she started.

"But we feel tha' we 'ave proven ourselves many times in tha lab, an' we would like a chance ta do so for tha examination as well," Fitz finished promptly.

"It seems to be a logical step in our career paths," Simmons added helpfully.

If Weaver didn't know them better, she would think they had been rehearsing this speech. She did know better though. She had a feeling this was more about them keeping up appearances as the youngest recruits they'd ever had. They wanted to be the youngest to be field certified as well. This was nothing more than their egos getting the better of them. They had likely bounced the idea back and forth between lectures that morning and just decided to pop into her office when they had a free moment in the afternoon, not giving a thought to the consequences.

"You realize neither of you have taken any of the defensive classes we've offered in hand to hand combat, you've not done any weapons training, and you haven't submitted a formal request to your currently assigned S.O. Not to mention, field work requires you to demonstrate a proficiency in undercover abilities." Weaver's statement did nothing to dampen their spirits.

"As it just so happens, we are both currently signed up for the self-defense curriculum this term," Jemma informed her, passing over copies of both of their schedules. Weaver didn't stop to wonder why Simmons had a copy of Fitz's schedule in her notebook. It just seemed natural that she would.

"An'," Fitz added, appearing as though he was just holding back a smirk, "we are familiar with protocol regarding firearms as both o' us 'ave been responsible for test firing many o' tha current models bein' used by field agents."

"Right. One of your projects last semester involved modifying the standard issues for maximum velocity and accuracy with a new firing mechanism. How could I have forgotten?" Weaver asked them dryly, eyes roaming the two schedules in front of her, which were loaded down with the usual academic courses, the self-defense courses they had told her about, and of all things, the required ethics course. Were they trying to complete the next stage of their curriculum in record time as well?

"As for the matter of our S.O.," Simmons began, though her words were again punctuated by Fitz.

"Ye should 'ave tha required paperwork by tha end o' tha day."

Both of the recruits glanced at one another and nodded their heads in unison. Weaver knew this was likely a mistake, that they weren't ready. There was no way they could pass with just this one term of combat training on their side. Clearly, these two didn't realize how much of the assessment involved practical application of the things they would learn during the entirety of their time here. As much as she loved the newly-christened-by-the-majority-of-their-professors FitzSimmons, this little exercise in climbing the S.H.I.E.L.D. ladder was going to take them down a peg or two. And maybe that was just what they needed.

"All right." Weaver handed the copies of the schedule back to Jemma. "If you two are able to do well enough in the required courses, I see no reason for you not to take the assessment during exam week at the end of term. Just to be clear though, field assessments are not graded on any kind of curve. There are no grey areas that allow you to argue a point or two back from a professor. Upper level agents follow your progress, deduct points for poor decision making, improper risk assessment, and lack of proper procedure. It is black and white. Passing means that no more than fifteen points can be deducted from your possible score. It's very strict. There is very little room for error. Only the best go into the field."

"We understand, Agent Weaver," they chorused. "Thank you."

She stared at them for a moment, then declared, "don't you have an afternoon lab you should be getting to?"

-o-

_**One.**_

"Did you know that with all of our exam scores so far, we are actually tied for top spot in the class - again?" Simmons asked conversationally as the duo made their way to the exam room.

"Are we? I hadn' checked." He had, but Fitz suspected she was trying to distract him from the fact that all the other SciTech students currently making their way toward the same building were years older than them. They had been competing with one another long before they actually became friends. He appreciated the effort, especially since her hands were nervously twisting in front of her as they walked instead of swinging harmlessly at her sides.

"Yes, though I imagine with my propensity for acing written exams, if the field assessments counted for any sort of grade for our year, I would outrank you after this."

Fitz snorted and attempted to turn it into a cough. He saw Simmons smile out of the corner of his eye and felt the tension drain from him, if only slightly.

"Ye know only one part o' tha exam is written. Everythin' else we 'ave ta do requires practical demonstrations o' skills."

She sighed before answering. "Yes, and I understand we also have to undergo a medical screening as well, I assume to ensure that we aren't entering field work with any kind of serious health problem."

The two stopped talking as they reached the doors, fishing their Academy IDs from their pockets and flashing them at the agent stationed there.

"I'm going to need to see the linings of your sweaters," he intoned, "if you have any food or beverages with you, please dispose of them. Writing utensils will be provided for you, and no electronic devices are permitted within the exam hall."

Fitz raised his eyebrow. Did they really think a prospective field agent was going to attempt to cheat in the middle of a S.H.I.E.L.D. facility, surrounded by other agents? Some people were preposterous. He held his arms out and opened the fabric so the man could check the lining.

"Are either of you wearing corrective lenses?"

The both mutely shook their heads and the agent waved them into the room where they were given a blank test booklet, two pencils, one pen, and instructions to leave at least two chairs between themselves and their nearest seated neighbor, and not to sit directly in front of or behind anyone else. This process was stricter than any exam Fitz had ever taken at university and they hadn't even received their first question yet.

Fitz raised his eyebrows at Simmons while they made their way down one row, taking seats two apart, but she just shrugged and sat primly on the old fashioned wooden chair provided. He watched as she placed her test booklet just so in front of her, then lined her pen and pencils along the top of the desk in a straight line. He set everything down in a haphazard pile and waited for the thing to start.

Ten minutes later and Fitz couldn't understand why they'd been so nervous. He and Simmons had pored over notes from all of their classes from the last year, the Handbook, even their orientation materials from the first week. Well, they went through Simmons' orientation materials anyway. He wasn't really sure where his were now. But it seemed they might have overdone it a tad.

_Using appropriate definitions and protocol from the Handbook, explain the labeling of Agents, Assets, and Consultants._

Fitz rolled his eyes. If the entire exam was going to be like this, he wondered why they didn't allow cadets to try for their field test earlier. He scribbled across the page quickly outlining just what the differences were, then for good measure, threw in the explanations for how field agents could be broken down into shadow agents, specialists, and a variety of other terms.

_What exactly is an 0-8-4? Explain how one is identified._

Sighing, Fitz explained as specifically as he could that no one knew what these mysterious objects were, that they were all of unknown origin, and that because they were all unique, there was no standard way to identify them. Then, just for kicks, he sketched one of the recent 0-8-4s that Professor Vaughn's class had been asked to speculate upon, adding his own theories as to what it could be and what the different parts of it could do.

_Using Section 17, suggest the circumstances in which violations would not result in immediate reassignment or termination._

Fitz's eye twitched and he shot a glance in Simmons' direction. Her brow was furrowed and her pencil was moving at a furious pace across the page. When she finished answering whatever question she was on, she stuck the end of her pencil to her mouth, then seemed to remember that it wasn't actually her pencil, shook her head, wiped her lips with the back of her hand, and poised the lead over the page while she read the next set of words. He couldn't help the smile that broke on his face. Turning back to the paper in front of him, he sighed and began to detail what kinds of undercover operations would allow for fraternization amongst field team members, and then added in, just in case, just why those S.H.I.E.L.D. agents who weren't assigned to mobile field teams didn't have the same Section 17 rules as everyone else. Then, because he couldn't resist, he wrote about why something as ludicrous as an anti-fraternization policy even existed at an organization like S.H.I.E.L.D. There was always so much to do, who could possibly have enough down time to fraternize with a teammate while in the field anyway?

_Agent M is captured by AIM security personnel. They employ various methods of torture in an effort to get him to reveal classified information. What details is he permitted to reveal about S.H.I.E.L.D.?_

Fitz rolled his eyes in annoyance. What kinds of questions were these, really? He flipped through the pages to see if it was more of the same, and it was, so he worked as quickly as he could to provide answers as to how to write interoffice memos correctly, when it was appropriate to contact the director of S.H.I.E.L.D. without going through the approved channels, the proper protocol to recruit an asset, how to report an enemy if you were approached by another clandestine organization, etc. He felt like the CIA probably had a more difficult entrance exam.

When he finally reached the last question, he paused, almost placing the tip of his pencil in his mouth as Simmons had, before remembering it was a community pencil and who knew what kind of germs were on it. He really needed to remember to wash his hands thoroughly after this portion of the assessment was over.

_Consider the scenario: You are part of a mobile S.H.I.E.L.D. unit, responsible for identifying, retrieving, and studying potential 0-8-4s. Your mission causes you to come in contact with a dangerous substance of unknown origin that infects a member of your team with a previously unknown virus. How do you proceed?_

Momentarily confused, Fitz pondered his options. Was he supposed to answer how he would personally proceed in the given scenario? He wasn't, after all, a medical professional. He supposed he would have to ensure that the team member in question was quarantined, that the 0-8-4 in question was quarantined, though samples would also have to be taken from it, or at the very least a biometric scan would need to be run on it, to figure out if it was the object or something in the environment that caused the transmission of the virus. What kinds of symptoms were there? Was there some sort of time limit involved? Did they have a medical officer in their mobile unit, or even a biologist for that matter? Where did they find this object? How far were they from a SHIELD base? There were just too many options to consider.

He peered up at one of the agents walking the outskirts of the room who had eyes like a hawk, his attention settling on every cadet for a moment before moving on to the next one. Fitz lifted his fingers from the surface of the desk, about to raise his hand and ask all of the questions he had, but when the agent glared at him, he flattened his palm on the table, fingers tapping, and gave a small sigh. Everything in the guy's eyes said _no talking._ Right.

He glanced over at Simmons again. She was tapping her pencil thoughtfully. She was on the final page of her booklet as well, and she appeared to be just as confused as he was. There just weren't enough parameters outlined for them to know how to proceed outside of "with caution." He bent over his desk as another agent walked by. He didn't want to appear as though he was trying to cheat.

"Fifteen minutes left for the written portion of the exam," a voice from the front of the room intoned.

He sighed and instead of properly answering the question, Fitz began listing all of the problems with the way the question was asked, all of the parameters that were necessary to understand the extent of the problem, and then ended by adding that the protocol for infected cargo in a S.H.I.E.L.D. vehicle was simply to drop it over a large body of water and shoot it into thousands of pieces, but that didn't seem like a particularly effective way to rid the world of an _unknown virus _now did it? What if introducing the virus to the ecosystem of the world's oceans only succeeded in spreading it faster? What if the salinity of the ocean somehow caused a supervirus? As an afterthought, he made a note that maybe this protocol should take into account that agents were not simply pieces of cargo. He realized that probably wasn't a smart way for him to address the likely much senior agent who would be reviewing his assessment, but he didn't much care at that point.

_This is ridiculous._

"Time. Place your booklets face down on the desk in front of you. Leave all of your materials behind. Do not touch another cadet's material. The first three rows will proceed to the gym to undergo your hand to hand combat assessment. The next three will proceed to medical for your fitness exam. The next three will report to the simulation room for subterfuge and espionage tasks. The next three will report to the basement labs for your tech assessment."

At that point, Fitz tuned the monotone voice out and shared a look with Simmons. Hand to hand combat was next for them. Probably the section they were looking forward to the least, but maybe it was best that they would be able to get it out of the way. Fitz's muscles ached just thinking about all the times he had been thrown onto a blue mat in class. If it wasn't for the fact that they had a written exam detailing the physics of the moves, or that the class was graded on a curve, he had a feeling neither he nor Simmons would have passed as well as they had. When chairs began to scrape the floor around him, Fitz realized the agent had finished speaking, and scrambled to his feet, following Simmons through the crush of people and out the door.

The chatter around them consisted of several of the students worrying that they didn't remember the handbook well enough or that certain pieces of protocol weren't touched on at all. Fitz and Simmons shared a smile and rolled their eyes while they walked.

"Not as difficult as I thought," she whispered conspiratorially to him.

"No' at all," he agreed. "Except for some appallin' wordin' on a few questions."

"That last one?" she asked, waiting for him to nod. "How do they expect you to make a decision without having all of the facts? Very poor technique on their part. I had to outline all the different possibilities and outcomes, and even then, I explained how I didn't possibly have enough to make an informed decision, that research and testing would have to be done on the artifact and the affected agent, and then I tried to list all of the possible tests that would have to be done. Utterly ridiculous."

"Same," Fitz agreed again. "It was impossible ta even determine wha' aspects o' protocol had ta be followed in tha' situation."

They walked in silence for a few moments until the building that housed the gym came into sight. Simmons peered down at her own jumper and jeans.

"Do you think we should have worn the clothing they usually issue for the combat class? That hadn't even occurred to me when I dressed this morning."

"I dunnae. I suppose they'll tell us if we have ta change? I assumed we'd jus' 'ave another written test, with a small practical portion, jus' like in tha class exam." Fitz shrugged, not too worried after the ease with which he had completed the examination on proper procedures.

He should have been worried though.

The agents in charge of the hand to hand combat exam didn't demonstrate any moves, they didn't even leave much room for discussion. They simply instructed that everyone take a seat in the bleachers and wait for their name to be called. Four prospective agents were called at a time, and each had to face off against a different senior agent while another group of senior agents walked the floor of the gym, electronic tablets in their hands, making notes the entire time.

Fit realized after about half of the cadets had been sent on to the next portion of their assessments and he and Simmons were still seated on the bleachers, that they were calling cadets down to the gym floor in order from oldest to youngest. The cadets with the most experience were getting the chance to go first. Was it a way to go easy on them, allow them to absorb just a few more tips and tricks while they watched everyone else?

If so, it wasn't working. Fitz had a sick feeling in the pit of his stomach instead. As the third female agent in their group was thrown harshly to the floor by a male agent twice her size, Fitz chanced a glance at Simmons who was seated next to him. The color had drained from her face, and her hands were nervously twisting in her lap. Other than that, she was focused. Her eyes flitted from one agent to the next, trying to absorb their movements, gauge how she should best react.

Fitz forced himself to do the same.

"Alright, last up," an agent in a blue field suit with one of the electronic tablets in her hand called to the room, "Jones, Marshall, Fitz, Simmons." She glanced at them after reading their names and shook her head.

As the group jogged down from the bleachers, Jones and Marshall were pointed to the agents at the back, while Fitz and Simmons were placed with the agents at the front. Simmons tried very hard to focus on the large man in front of her, but it was difficult knowing that Fitz was at her back and she couldn't even check on his progress. She gave a nervous smile when the man told her all she had to do was stop him from pinning her to the matt. That was it.

Unfortunately for Simmons, though she understood the physics of the movements, she had never quite managed to master them in practice, and the agent had her on the ground in less than thirty seconds, and she couldn't move a muscle. It was a bit embarrassing, really. Out of the corner of her eye, she realized Fitz didn't fare much better. He lasted a little longer than she did, but that was mostly because he spent a good portion of the two minutes he was on the mat evading the older agent, ducking under his arms and spinning around him, trying to find a more advantageous position. The other man got sick of it though, stuck his foot out, and tripped Fitz before kneeling with his knee in the small of the younger man's back.

"How many points was the hand to hand part of the exam worth?" Jemma asked Fitz quietly as they were sent to their physical.

"Fifteen," Fitz sighed.

They were told that if they were really interested in becoming field agents to try again after the following semester.

-o-

* * *

><p><strong>This story has been in pieces on my computer for a very long time. If you follow me on tumblr, it's what I've been using for Six Sentence Sundays for a while. It's finally done, and I'll be posting it in six chapters.<strong>

**Thanks are due to notapepper and StarryDreamer01 for being extra pairs of eyes and helping me clean this up. Thanks, ladies!**


	2. Chapter 2

_**Two.**_

As the future S.H.I.E.L.D. scientists neared the next sign up session for field assessments, Fitz realized something very important – he didn't actually want to be a field agent. He wanted to do his work in the lab, making the things that other people would be taking out in the field. He wasn't keen on being shot at or having punches thrown in his direction.

Simmons, though she didn't tell Fitz, had come to the same conclusion. She wanted to do some good in the world, and she found the prospect of being present for the practical applications of her work to be thrilling, but she didn't want to continually watch her teammates be placed in harm's way. There was also that pesky matter of her not performing well under pressure. She was fairly certain she wouldn't last longer than a month in the field.

Their S.O. had another idea though. They hadn't chosen him. He had been assigned to them. Professor Vaughn was a retired S.H.I.E.L.D. agent. Retired in the sense that he no longer did active field work. He was, however, still teaching at the SciTech Academy and was very insistent on molding the minds of his charges. He had a habit of handpicking the best and brightest and getting them to sign on with him. He had cultivated the minds of some of S.H.I.E.L.D.'s most well-known chemists, biologists, medical teams, physicists, and inventors of the last decade. And Fitz-Simmons would be the feather in his very loaded cap if he could top them being the youngest students at the Academy with them being the youngest to pass their field assessments. So, without telling them, he signed them up for another round.

-o-

"I don't understand," Simmons protested, "we decided not to try for our field assessments again right away. She fingered the page in her hand reminding her of the date and time she needed to be present.

On the other end of the phone line, Fitz muttered, "Vaughn. He must 'ave signed us up again. Ugh. I'm no' lookin' forward ta bein' thrown on tha mats again… I really hate tha' man."

"Well, look on the bright side. We already know what to expect, yeah? We should be better this time!"

Simmons' false cheer did little to make Fitz actually want to go back into the gauntlet of the field assessment, but he was damned if he wasn't going to at least try to make it through more than two rounds.

Lucky for Fitz, they weren't selected for hand to hand combat right out of the gate.

-o-

In fact, the written assessment was even easier this time around. Same topics on the questions, but infinitely better wording on this version of the test. Every time Fitz came across a question where he had made note of the poor phrasing during the last assessment, a little smirk would settle on his face.

_Someone was paying attention._

"Pencils down. Please turn your test booklets face down and leave them on your desk."

Fitz put his head in his hands and waited for further instructions. Two seats away, Simmons mimicked his actions.

"Rows one through three will go in for your medical assessment. The next three to your tech assessment. The next for hand to hand combat…"

_Tech assessment!_

Fitz resisted the urge to pump his fists in the air and cheer. He saw a grin spread across Simmons' face as well. She might not have been quite as mechanically inclined as he was, but there was no doubt that a tech assessment was much more up her alley than blocking punches in the gym.

As they left the room and proceeded to one of the engineering labs, Simmons playfully bumped his hip with her own. "Tech assessment, Fitz," she whispered gleefully.

"Piece o' cake," Fitz agreed more enthusiastically than he normally would at the prospect of an exam. "Wha' do ye think they'll 'ave us work on?"

"I don't know. Probably nothing new, right? Something we'd be likely to see in the field?" Simmons drummed the fingers of her left hand on her thigh in thought as she walked. She didn't used to be quite so fidgety. Becoming friends with Fitz in the last year had her picking up some of his habits. She forced herself to still her hand, fingernails scratching at the denim instead.

They fell silent, along with the other dozen students, as they filed into a lab. Standing at the front was an agent Simmons didn't recognize, but he nodded at Fitz in recognition, so she assumed he must have been with the engineering department.

"Okay, this isn't just a tech assessment," the instructor began as the doors shut and agents with tablets in hand stationed themselves throughout the room, ready to record scores. "This is also a test in teamwork, how well you work under pressure. Two cadets to a station. You're going to work together to disarm the alarm systems on the table in front of you, and then, depending on the system you've got, well, you'll see what you've got to do after that. They've been programmed randomly for the mission outcome. There is a countdown clock. No one can work past the zero mark." No one moved from where they were all clustered in the middle of the room. "I said two cadets to a table. Don't make me repeat my instructions."

Simmons quickly stepped to her right, placing the palms of her hands on the table in front of her, eying the mound in the middle of the table that was covered with a drop cloth so they couldn't actually see it until they began. Fitz, out of habit, followed her. They hadn't paired up with anyone else in the last six months if they were in the same class, and he didn't see a reason to start now. If he wanted to get high marks in team work, working with Simmons was a sure fire way to do it. They worked together seamlessly at this point. They could complete the assessment without even talking about it, something he wasn't sure the rest of the room was going to be able to do.

One of the agents with a tablet in hand cleared his throat and made his way briskly to the front of the room, whispering something to the instructor with his back to the cadets. Fitz and Simmons exchanged a curious glance.

"Simmons?" The instructor asked the room blankly.

"Sir?" She squeaked.

"You and Monroe need to switch partners. I've been informed you being paired up with Fitz, whom you've been working with for several months, gives you an unfair advantage." He gestured to the table in front of him where a young blond man, who held himself like he was fresh out of the army, stood. The blond moved to the table with Fitz while Simmons offered an awkward smile to Monroe's former partner, a small woman with dark hair that she'd never seen before.

Fitz balled his hands into fists on the table. He and Monroe both had a background in engineering. He was fairly certain that the woman Simmons was now paired with was a biologist. Simmons and the other woman were now at a severe disadvantage compared to the rest of the pairings. She should have at least been paired with Monroe. He shook his head slightly, trying to clear it. It wouldn't do to worry about whether or not Simmons could do this without him. If they made it into the field, wasn't the possibility there that they wouldn't be working together anyway?

When the clock started, Simmons swallowed uncertainly and pulled the cover from the table. The piece of technology in front of them looked vaguely familiar, and she gave a start as she realized what it was. "Isn't this," she whispered to her partner, noting that everyone around them was whispering to one another as well, no wanting to give another pairing an advantage, "the same mechanics for the security system that locks down the dorms?"

Her partner tapped her chin thoughtfully, cocking her head to the side as she thought, like she was mentally untangling the knots of a problem, and Simmons was struck by the mannerism. Is that what she looked like when she aimed that expression at Fitz?

"Would it be so easy that we could just swipe our ID?" The other woman whispered with a slight laugh.

Simmons shrugged. She remembered that just a month ago she had left her ID on the desk in her room. Fitz, who couldn't get into her floor because it was restricted to female cadets and the locks were coded to recognize only their IDs, had managed to break in.

"I think," she began, "it wouldn't be quite that easy." She leaned over, peering at the keypad and the tools that had been left on the table for them to use. Wire cutters, a portable version of the machine that magnetized the strips on their IDs, blank IDs… It was if they were expecting them to reprogram it to recognize a new card, but she knew from what Fitz had done that it wasn't as difficult as all that. There was a sequence programmed into the line that was used on the dorms, she remembered him telling her as he had swiped his card, and then pushed a series of buttons. She hadn't asked _why_ he knew this about the dorms. It was Fitz. He figured things like that out.

It would only work if the machine was the same model.

She heard a click and a hiss from behind them, alerting that the model "door" on the lab table where Fitz and Monroe were had already been unlocked.

"Oh, bloody – " Fitz's voice rose.

"Are you kidding me?" Monroe echoed.

A loud beeping came from behind them, and Simmons and her partner exchanged a look of alarm. Whatever happened after the door was unlocked didn't sound good.

"Look for a model number," Simmons instructed her quietly as one of the agents with a tablet stopped between their table and the one on their left, fingers flying over the screen as they observed.

She heard Fitz and his partner arguing behind her, but she tried to tune them out.

"Here." She pointed to the sequence of letters on the underside of the keypad and Simmons nodded at her.

"Right." Simmons removed her own ID from her pocket, not bothering with the magnetizing unit on the table. Her partner was right – what was the point if they all already had keycards? She swiped her ID. "Okay, I think this should work. A friend did this when I was locked out." She quickly typed in the sequence of numbers, longer than the standard passcode, surprised that she was able to remember them.

"Look at that. You did it." The click and hiss indicated the door was now open.

Simmons breathed a sigh of relief.

Their happiness was short lived when the light, which had blinked from red to green, began flashing yellow, the screen above the keypad blinking rapidly before scrolling the message, "detonation initiated."

"Oh," Simmons said quietly, now understanding the exclamations from the table behind them.

"I've only had to defuse a bomb once," her partner informed her quietly.

Simmons looked over at the other girl. Sweat was gathering on her hairline and the other girl's breath was starting to come in panicky gasps. Her skin was turning an alarming shade of gray, eyes wide and glassy. Her partner was about to have a panic attack.

"Okay, erm, walk me through it," Simmons told her shortly, realizing as much as she was not an expert in this area, neither was the woman next to her. Simmons was, just this once, going to have to be the one to perform well under pressure. A count-down clock had appeared in the screen where the message had previously scrolled.

_Spies are so dramatic_, Simmons thought to herself, _they turn everything into a big production._

She tried to listen to the instructions from next to her as she removed the cover from the keypad so she could look at the wiring and examine all of the connections, but the arguing behind her was growing louder.

"Bloody moron," Fitz's voice carried to her, and she bit her lip to stop herself from laughing. It shouldn't be funny that he was having such difficulty with his partner. Apparently, two engineers defusing a bomb was just too many.

She picked up the wire cutters and followed the red wire that led to the computer panel back to the power source. Her partner was babbling on about it being the only wire that made sense to cut, so, without another thought, Simmons closed her eyes and cut it. A sharp gasp from her side told her that might not have been the best option.

"Damn," Simmons mumbled when she lifted her lids and saw that the count-down clock was moving toward zero at something that looked akin to triple time. "Okay," she breathed, "we only have one door panel, right? They aren't all rigged to explode at the same time, right? If we had something like liquid nitrogen, we could freeze it in place." She looked to her partner for help.

"I don't think it works that way." There was a pause. "And that's not in our tools."

Simmons gave another sigh and looked at the materials they did have. "Well," she said with a shrug, "we do have a fire extinguisher."

The looked at one another, and then at the extinguisher strapped to the side of the table.

"I didn't even want to take the field assessment. I want to work in research," Simmons' partner whispered. "At the Sandbox. My S.O. made me do this. She said it would be good experience for me. I'm Rebecca, by the way. I think we were in the same ethics lecture last semester." Rebecca was babbling, but seemed to have calmed significantly, perhaps remembering that this was a test, and not a real bomb. Surely, they weren't going to actually blow up the room?

"Oh." Simmons licked her lips nervously. "So, if this doesn't work, neither of us is going to blame the other then? Because I was not expecting to be taking the assessment this time either."

"Nope." Rebecca paused and then unhooked the extinguisher, pulling the pin as the count-down clock reached less than a minute. "Nothing's actually going to blow up, right?"

Simmons didn't answer her, just grabbed the extinguisher and pulled the trigger, aiming the hose at the table in front of them as the clock moved closer to zero.

-o-

"Well," Fitz said, his fingers wrapped around the neck of his beer in the Boiler Room, "a' leas' we _both_ failed." He offered his bottle out to Simmons in a toast, and she clinked hers against his with a smile.

"Don't hold those up too high," Rebecca admonished. "I don't want to get caught buying beers for minors."

"We're legal," Simmons protested with half a laugh.

"Not here," Rebecca shot back, but she smiled as well and held her own beer up. "Here's to lab life."

"Cheers."

"Slàinte."

-o-


	3. Chapter 3

_**Three.**_

The duo had just graduated from The Academy. They were given an appointment at the SciOps facility. And everything was going swimmingly. They didn't _need_ to be field certified. The thing was - Simmons was determined now. She knew exactly what to expect out of three sections of the field assessment. She was almost positive that the other sections involved being able to maintain cover identity and actually complete a mission. She wasn't a very good liar, but she was certain she was passable, that she could get through it. It didn't even matter whether or not she wanted to be in the field, it was a matter of principle at this point. Jemma Simmons didn't fail at anything. She could be horribly inefficient in combat as long as she got high marks in everything else.

She explained this to Fitz over mugs of tea, blueprints for a device he was working on spread out between them.

He finished the calculations he had been making, then glanced up at her. "Wha' I'm hearin' from ye is tha' we're ignorin' our holiday ta study fer this, yeah?"

"Don't you want to show them we can do this, Fitz, that we aren't just lab rats?"

He didn't answer her, just went back to his maths. She let it drop, helping him with the project when he needed it, flipping through articles on the research into a newly developed system of poisons that could create paralysis when he didn't seem to need her. When she went to sign herself up for the next field assessment session a few days later though, she found both of their names at the top of the list already, and she stifled a grin. She was fairly certain he was taking the failure as personally as she was.

-o-

Fitz rolled his eyes through the written portion of the test when it came time to sit the examination again. If he had to take this bloody thing again, he was going to start petitioning for scores from earlier attempts to be used. It was starting to feel like a waste of time to do this repeatedly. The written exams weren't difficult enough, or different enough, in their iterations that he had to do anything more than answer on autopilot. It was ridiculous.

Just like the previous attempt, Fitz and Simmons proceeded to their tech assessment after the written portion was over. Different advisors this time around meant no one stopped them from working together. Fitz was certain, based on the initial downcast of her eyes, that Simmons felt momentarily guilty about pairing up with him given that they had been halted before. He didn't care. He wasn't getting stuck with a moron who wouldn't listen to his advice again. Especially not one who did everything he could to actually blow them up.

Simmons might not have been an engineering student, but she knew when to let him take the lead and when she should be the one in charge. They had a fantastic system of give and take when they worked together, and he knew this was going to be much easier with her. They disabled a slightly different alarm system, he halted an explosion, and Simmons counteracted the releasing of a poisonous gas – almost in record time – and he only had a moment to pat himself on the back before wondering who had managed to do it faster than them in earlier tests. Probably an Ops agent. They trained specifically for this kind of thing. He bet they had whole classes at the Operations Academy devoted to dismantling bombs and breaking security systems.

_Like James Bond._

_Or a really dangerous jewel thief._

"You two," the instructor pointed at them after they high-fived and their time was recorded, "you're moving on to espionage and subterfuge tactics. Basement level."

By the time they reached the hallway where they were supposed to be, several other recently graduated cadets had already assembled there from their own tests. They stood in a group outside several sets of doors, watching the agent in front of them with trepidation.

Fitz and Simmons tried to conceal their excitement.

Maria Hill was pacing the floor, her face impassive. Simmons elbowed Fitz in her glee, stopping just short of grabbing his hand and squeezing it. S.H.I.E.L.D. agents probably weren't supposed to do that sort of thing. Maria Hill was second only to Director Fury, a recent promotion for the agent who had come out of the Communications Academy, and she was in charge of this portion of their assessment?

It might have been nerve-wracking, but it was also somewhat thrilling to think someone that high on the S.H.I.E.L.D. hierarchy was interested in the most recent Academy graduates. Fitz gave a slight nod to indicate he understood, but he couldn't stop his fingers from twitching at his sides in nervous excitement. Hill was something of a living legend. They said that even though she started out tapping phone lines and monitoring spy chatter, she trained for the field with the Black Widow and the Cavalry. He started to sweat.

Hill looked them over, seemingly counting in her head, before she folded her arms and stood still. "Okay, cadets, here's how it's going to go. Each of you is going to be presented with a cover story. You have a few minutes to memorize it. Then, the fun begins." She gestured behind her, and for the first time the group noticed another agent with a stack of folders. He passed them around, one to each of them. "You have exactly three minutes to memorize your cover. Then we're taking them back. Begin."

Simmons blinked, clutching the folder in her hands. The hall was silent save the sounds of pages crinkling against fingertips as a group of people very adept at cramming for exams read their cover stories. She glanced down at the folder in her hand and opened it curiously. The page inside was essentially the outline of a person's life.

_Sarah Smith_

_Age: 25_

_Nationality: American_

Jemma cringed a bit at that. She knew that most of the students were older than her, and her American accent wasn't exactly horrible, but this was going to be interesting.

_Spouse: David, married two years_

_Children: None, but they are trying_

_Education: Private education at a top boarding school, degrees in biology and anatomy from a top tier university. Pick the specifics. Be ready to discuss._

Well, that was easy enough.

_Parents: Deceased_

_Illnesses: None_

_Allergies: Peanuts_

_Hobbies: Jogging, gardening, crossword puzzles_

_She was late for this meeting. Why was she late? Make it convincing._

It really was the bare bones of a biography. How much was she expected to add to it? Did Sarah have a cat, a dog? What kind of car did she drive? How had she met her husband? Jemma sighed, reading the information over and over, gradually filling in the blanks in her own mind. She itched to look at Fitz's paper to see what kind of cover he got, but she held back. She didn't want to confuse her own information with his.

"Time. Folders closed." Hill eyed them all carefully, making sure they had followed her instructions. "Good. Now, take a door. You're each here for a job interview. You're infiltrating a medical examiner's office as an applicant to be an assistant to the chief medical examiner. You have to get a file. The file will have the S.H.I.E.L.D. logo on it. You don't have to get the job, but the file is somewhere in the room with you and the person interviewing you. Do what you have to do, but maintain your cover at all costs. You will be evaluated by the role playing agent as well as those observing you on video feed. You have one hour. Go."

Simmons and Fitz immediately made for the same door, but he quickly backed off with a half-smile, going to the next one. She shouldn't be surprised; they were in sync even when they weren't supposed to be. She raised her hand, about to knock, but realized that she was expected and that if she was to maintain her cover story, she was in a hurry, maybe even frazzled at being late. Sarah Smith wouldn't stop to knock.

-o-

Fitz burst through the door, almost tripping over his own two feet on the way in.

"Erm, sorry! I haven't missed my own appointment, have I?" He worked to flatten his vowels and stretch his consonants, making himself as middle American as possible. That joke of a character assignment had said he was from the mid-west.

"Just a little late," the woman sitting at the table informed him, a frown on her face. Had he already done something wrong?

"David Smith," he offered, hand extended to shake hers, forcing a congenial smile to stretch his lips. "Sorry I'm late." He tried to make his grip somewhere between gentle and firm as he said, "I know you already know who I am, but introductions are always polite, aren't they," he babbled, "at least, that's what my mother taught me. I'll admit, I'm usually out with my wife, so I let her make the introductions." Christ, he was almost as bad as Simmons going on like this. He didn't usually have much difficulty lying to people. What was wrong with him?

-o-

"Lost my wedding ring and it took me ages to take apart the seats in the car to find it. I'm terribly sorry."

"Oh, you're married?" The S.H.I.E.L.D. agent across from her asked as they began talking.

Simmons swallowed and nodded uncertainly, her eyes straying to the table between them, searching for the file she was supposed to get. How exactly was she supposed to get it? "Yes. Going on two years now." Her voice came out a little higher than usual and she struggled to maintain her composure.

"That's young. You would have still been in school?"

She shrugged nonchalantly. "As is indicated on my resume," she tapped the paper in front of the agent, "I graduated earlier than most. As for my marriage, when you know, you know." She smiled brightly.

"I'm a sucker for a good romance." The woman in front of her sighed wistfully. "How did you two meet?"

Simmons knew this was just to see how well she could come up with a convincing story, but the part of her brain that was treating this like a job interview couldn't help but be annoyed that this woman wasn't focusing on her credentials.

-o-

"We met in class, actually," Fitz said, the far off expression in his eyes not really a pretense as he tried to grasp for a story to tell while looking for anything with a S.H.I.E.L.D. logo on it. His eyes settled on a flashdrive at the edge of the table, right next to the agent's elbow that had the outlines of the logo on it, just as his mind found a story that worked. He could remember enough of the details that it would be convincing. "She was assigned to be my partner in a chemical kinetics lab." Actually, as he thought about how she had rolled her eyes when he had plopped down next to her at the station, it was pretty much perfect.

-o-

Simmons swallowed again as she realized the "file" wasn't paper, but a small drive on the table next to her resume. How the hell was she supposed to grab it? It was right in front of the agent, but she continued with her story.

"It's funny. We didn't really get along at first, both thought we should be the one running the experiments. Of course, even with all of that initial arguing, we still scored higher on anything than anyone else… We had top marks in any lab we took together." She paused and licked her lips. Her mouth had suddenly gone very dry. "We just –"

-o-

" – clicked really. I had known she was smart from another class I'd taken with her, but I'd never properly introduced myself. She never lets me forget that."

-o-

"I always thought he hated me, you know? He was always trying to one up me in class. They do say there's a thin line."

-o-

"Did they rehearse their stories ahead of time?" Agent Jasper Sitwell turned from the monitors he was stationed in front of. As one of the currently top ranked agents in espionage who wasn't on a mission, he had been drafted to help score exams. He hated scoring exams.

"No. They each got separate files. No talking. Why?" Hill joined him, and he handed over the headphones he was wearing, monitoring two sessions at the same time.

-o-

"Working with her at first, it made me nervous." He fidgeted in his seat, hands playing with the pen and the pile of papers in front of him. "Thought I was going to blow something up. But she's the best partner I ever had."

-o-

"I've never had a better lab partner, really." She sighed. "I knew I was done for." A little bit of her natural voice leaked through, but Simmons didn't notice. "I tried dating around, it didn't really take. He's the only partner I need."

-o-

"There was never really anyone else for me. Bunch of disastrous first dates, and then right back to the lab to be with her." Fitz chuckled, leaning forward in his seat, and succeeded in dropping several of the items on the surface of the table to the floor, seemingly accidentally.

-o-

"Well. That's unexpected." Hill cocked her head to the side, gesturing to Sitwell's tablet. "Make a note. Their stories are too similar to be a coincidence. Have it checked out."

-o-

Simmons cleared her throat again. She wasn't used to doing this much talking in a voice that wasn't her own. "Would you mind if I troubled you for some water?"

She indicated the small set up to the side of the agent, where a tray housed a pitcher and a few glasses. Seemed like as good of an excuse as any to get the agent to focus on something else. Simmons let out a small cough for good measure. She was only partially faking it, and when the agent handed her glass to her, she managed to just miss it, the water careening everywhere, including all over the flash drive, which meant she likely wasn't going to pass because it wasn't going to be salvageable.

-o-

Fitz made a dive for the flash drive as the agent moved to help him pick up the papers, but it slipped from Fitz's grasp and right onto the floor in the agent's line of sight. He shook his head in frustration. The agent seemed to be trying not to laugh at him.

-o-

"Guess it doesn't really matter," Sitwell remarked to Hill. "Neither of them managed to get the file without getting caught or destroying it." He hit a few buttons on the screen in front of him, docking them each points in the appropriate categories. The girl was an awful liar. She had been violently shaking the entire time. If she hadn't spilled the water and ruined the drive, she would have done something else. The guy though, he wasn't quite as bad. Just a little too stiff. He needed to loosen up a bit more. Sitwell shook his head.

The points they were docked were enough to keep them from continuing on their assessment.

-o-


	4. Chapter 4

_**Four.**_

Over the next few years, Jemma did fleetingly consider attempting to take her field assessment again, but she and Fitz were kept startlingly busy in their very own lab with technology sold to and patented for S.H.I.E.L.D. by the likes of Tony Stark, Bruce Banner, and other S.H.I.E.L.D. assets; and as they slowly worked their way up the ranks to Level Four, they were even given the opportunity to work on long stored pieces of equipment whose files were lost and no one really knew exactly what the technology had been manufactured _for_. There really wasn't a chance to even think about the possibility of becoming a field agent or better preparing themselves for what it would entail.

Some days they would show up for work and there would be cases sitting on their lab tables with CLASSIFIED stenciled across them in bold letters and they would spend hours trying to figure out what they were even supposed to do with it before they started experimenting, sometimes losing track of time and staying up until four in the morning in their little basement lab looking for answers. Jemma would frequently sit herself down in the middle of the sterile floor, files spread around her, her mind processing the information as quickly as possible while Fitz would pace around her, reciting what they knew aloud. His voice and her thoughts would blend together so seamlessly that she often forgot that his words weren't her own.

Other times, they were free to develop their own devices and compounds, do their own research, and they would still lose track of time and skip meals before one of them would hear Fitz's stomach growl or Jemma would begin rolling her shoulders in an effort to alleviate the aches from staring into microscopes all day.

It was on one of those late days when their work was interrupted by a group of scientists sticking their head in the door and inviting them out for drinks. Someone had just passed their field assessment and the lower level scientists were all going out to celebrate. Simmons smiled tightly and shook her head, irritated to be interrupted, while Fitz scratched the back of his neck when he looked up at the clock.

They waited until the sounds of the other scientists moving through the hall had died down before Fitz turned to her, "Time ta call i' a night, yeah?"

"Yeah," she agreed reluctantly, helping him with the cleanup.

They left together, making their way down the street unimpeded since there was no one else out this time of night except those making their way home from the bars, or those on their way out to the bars for that matter.

"Didnae even realize field assessments were goin' on today," Fitz commented offhand.

"No," she agreed, pulling her coat more tightly around her and slipping one arm through his to stave off the chill of the night. "There are smaller groups taking it here though, not whole classes of graduating cadets… We've been busy."

"Yeah."

They walked a few blocks in companionable silence before he asked her, "Ye still wan' ta take i'?"

She hesitated before answering, knowing how much Fitz liked the routine of the lab they were in now. "Just because we take the tests doesn't mean we would have to become field agents. We would just be better prepared if an assignment came up that required us to assist a field team." He made a noise in the back of his throat. "I know you don't want to go into the field, Fitz." She sighed.

"Ye can still take tha test."

The thought had occurred to her, of course. Just because they had come up through the Academy together, just because they had joined SciOps together, and just because they had attempted the field assessments together in the past, did not mean that they both had to become field certified. Logically, she knew that. But the less logical and more emotional part of her brain was not prepared to go into the field without him. _If _she ever even went into the field. She'd had plenty of acquaintances over the years, partners on projects, but she'd never connected with anyone or worked as well with someone before as she did with Fitz. She didn't really want to start all over again with someone else.

And she would miss him.

Not that missing someone was relevant to making a decision in her career. She was, after all, doing this work for the science of it all, not because she had found herself a great lab partner.

"What kind of fun would that be, doing it without you?" Simmons asked him, keeping her tone light, and tugging insistently on his arm. "Besides, no one else would be able to keep up with my findings." She peered at him out of the corner of her eye and was rewarded with a smile that he didn't bother trying to hide from her.

-o-

They didn't have to wait long before their new SO (Agent Vaughn had finally relinquished his hold on them, still teaching at the Academy) was insisting that their talents could be implemented in the field – they would be great candidates to actually work with and modify their technology while it was live. When he spoke with them about it in the lab on a particularly early morning when both of them were not yet fully awake, Simmons didn't say anything, just kept her eyes downcast on the slides she was trying to prepare, ignoring the feel of Fitz's gaze on her.

Instead, it was Fitz who spoke up with something of a sigh, "Sign us up fer tha nex' one, yeah?"

Agent Wheelan did his best to help them prepare, but his drilling them on complex molecules, electrical systems, security protocols, and how to take apart a weapon wasn't exactly helpful when they were elbows deep in newly discovered Asgardian artifacts. Simmons still didn't understand how a mythological being could just show up in the middle of the desert with no warning. She and Fitz had quickly volunteered to be part of the team at SciOps to analyze anything and everything Asgardian.

What was a help was the morning Agent Wheelan came in and informed them blithely that because they had both achieved perfect scores on the written portion of their exams the last three times, they would be exempt from taking that portion again. He had worked it out with one of the agents who would be on hand to monitor the test. Fitz made a noise in the back of his throat that sounded like a scoff, but Simmons spoke over him to inform Wheelan about their findings, effectively cutting off talk of the field assessment for the time being.

-o-

What Agent Wheelan hadn't told them was that even though they weren't taking the written assessment, they would be sitting and waiting for the other SciOps candidates to take theirs, just outside of the testing room under the watchful eye of another S.H.I.E.L.D. agent, one they had never met before. She didn't really seem to be paying them any attention, so instead of sitting quietly like they were supposed to, Fitz whispered to Simmons about ignition points and grounding wires and everything he could think of that would allow her some knowledge concerning disabling a bomb or a security system, just in case they were separated again. Simmons, for her part, hurriedly whispered to him about the most vulnerable points of human anatomy, the clusters of nerve endings that were likely to bring even the most experienced of S.H.I.E.L.D. agents to their knees if hit with just the right amount of pressure and the way to counteract some of the most common poisons they saw in their line of work. Their whispers echoed over and around one another as they rushed to get as much information as possible to one another at the exact same time. If the agent wondered how they could possibly understand and still keep track of what they were saying, she didn't show it.

With such a small group of scientists taking their field assessments, there was no need to create different groups of agents to test in different areas. Instead, Fitz and Simmons were ushered into the room as soon as the written portion of the exam was done. Carts were being wheeled to different lab stations with equipment covered by sheeting, and the size and shape looked remarkably similar to what they had worked with at the Academy.

Everyone in the room was already paired off when they walked through the door, so Fitz didn't ask for clarification, simply placed his hand on the small of Simmons' back and led her to an empty station at the back of the room. Unless they were told to separate, he wasn't doing it. He was competitive enough that he wanted the advantage of their easy partnership again, and he was sure Simmons would too. She didn't look guilty like she had the last time they took this part of the test; instead she was completely focused, her eyes narrowed on the cart that was wheeled over to them.

Though the machine was different – some sort of computer system Fitz wasn't as familiar with – the two of them still managed to get into it, retrieve the file the S.H.I.E.L.D. agent at the front had directed them to find, save it to a drive, and initiate a complete system wipe, all the while preventing the machine from blowing up on them.

"S.H.I.E.L.D. does like to blow things up as a self-destruct, don't they," Simmons muttered to Fitz in amusement out of the corner of her mouth as the agent at their side recorded their results with an impressed nod.

"Probably think it's the most efficient. Gets rid of all the evidence, and the enemies," Fitz whispered back.

They leaned against the table and waited for the others around them to finish. Only one pair didn't successfully complete the task, but as they had retrieved all of the necessary information before their system blew, they were granted access to the next part of the assessment as well.

Simmons tapped her fingers nervously on the table in front of her as the S.H.I.E.L.D. agent at the front explained that espionage and subterfuge tactics were next. Her nails clicked and clacked on the surface of the table as she waited to get her file with the outline of her cover identity. A part of her dreaded this section of the test even more than the combat portion. Her lying hadn't improved very much. She and Fitz had been trying their hands at little white lies in the lab. Playing the old party game "Two Truths and a Lie" to help them prepare. The only problem with that was that the two of them knew each other too well. It was too easy to spot one another's lies.

Fitz eyed Simmons' restless hands and gave in to the inclination to stop her tapping, using one of his own to cover hers, not looking at her as he did it. Her sigh reached his ears and he gave her hand a quick squeeze before removing his from her side of the table. He didn't want to get them in trouble, but if she didn't relax, she wasn't going to get through the test, and she was probably going to give him even more to worry about.

"In the interest of expediting this process so that you can all go back to work, you can remain in pairs for this portion of the assessment." It was the woman who had been stationed outside with them who spoke as another agent passed out the folders to each lab table. "Each pair has an objective. You will all be in the same room, attending the reception for a scientific conference, and some pairs have the same objective. Your job is to achieve that objective with minimal disaster. Or at least get as close to it as you can. The agents mingling in the next room are the ones who have whatever it is you're after. You have three minutes to memorize your files and create a plan."

Simmons stared at the folder that was slapped down in front of her, then turned her head to the side as one was placed in front of Fitz as well. They waited until they were given the all clear before they opened the folders. Simmons gave an unhappy sigh when she read hers. She was going to have to pretend to be American again. Her accent still wasn't as good as Fitz's. She brightened when she realized that if they were in pairs, maybe she could rely on him to do most of the talking. She elbowed him, pushing her open folder in his direction and glancing at his, her face coloring when she did.

Well, that was unexpected.

-o-

Fitz picked up a glass of fake champagne from a tray as a S.H.I.E.L.D. agent dressed as a waiter walked by. He drank half of it in one long swallow. Simmons had her arm looped through his, and with only one free hand, he couldn't grab two, so he handed the glass over to her.

He wished it was something stronger than sparkling apple juice.

She took it from his outstretched hand, taking a sip, and leaning in close to him.

"Any ideas on obtaining the objective?"

They hadn't managed to come up with much of a plan other than scope out the other occupants of the room and see if they could figure out who else had the same objective they did – stealing the prototype for a new tracking device. It was disguised as a pen. The easiest thing would be, of course, to borrow the pen for something, and simply forget to give it back. But they didn't know who had it.

"See anybody takin' notes?" Fitz asked her with a smirk. "Signin' autographs, maybe?" He didn't need to look over at her to know she was rolling her eyes.

"This is serious, _Jacob_."

"I know, _Joan_."

He steered them towards a man in a suit that was definitely not one of the SciOps candidates, so he must have been one of the agents monitoring them. He was wearing a name badge that said he was some sort of engineer. Fitz couldn't tell what kind because part of the badge was covered. This guy though, he held himself like ex-military. Like so many of the Ops agents did. He was no scientist. He was someone who had something that one of them needed. Who's to say he didn't have the pen? This was supposed to be a party. They had to mingle. Maintain a cover. Retrieve the pen.

"Doctor Jacob Morris," Fitz said smoothly, holding his hand out in front of him, "I don't believe I caught your talk."

"Ah," the agent said, breaking into a grin, "I wasn't speaking this year, just attending for the fun of it."

"Oh, really? Us too." Fitz used his free hand to motion to Jemma who awkwardly placed the now empty glass from the fake champagne on a nearby table. She gave a small smile. "This is Doctor Joan Calloway-Morris."

"Uh huh."

There was something like a smile playing at the corners of the agent's mouth. He glanced back and forth between them, then down where Simmons had curled her fingers tightly, almost possessively around Fitz's forearm. It was oddly comforting, the warm weight of her hand there, even if her fingernails were digging into his arm slightly.

"Yes." Simmons nodded her head emphatically, then probably realized she looked ridiculous, so she slowed herself down and gave a smile, turning to Fitz as she did, her eyes catching his. "Yes," she repeated, "but I'm sure Jacob will be presenting next year." She almost slipped up on the American accent. "He's nearly completed an automated drone that can use sound waves in a kind of echolocation. Uses a speaker system to create a 3D map of a room in such exceptional detail. It's really remarkable. Better than anything else on the market, and it's only in early testing right now."

Well, Fitz was happy to see that she was using some semblance of the work on one of their DWARFS to create a convincing cover story. If Fitz didn't know better, he would say she looked proud. Of him. He wasn't expecting that.

"Still have a few bugs to work out," he said, trying to cover his surprise with humility, his eyes stuck on Simmons. She rolled her own eyes in response.

"Don't let him fool you. He's brilliant. I try not to tell him that too often. Don't want to inflate the ego too much." Her fingertips dug further into his arm and she managed to move even closer to him.

The agent chuckled appreciatively. "You two work together."

Fitz nodded his head, but Simmons cut off any kind of vocal response he would have made.

"We do everything together. _Very well_," she remarked conspiratorially, her fingers dancing along his arm again. "This conference is also our honeymoon, you know. They have such wonderful amenities here. _Excellent room service_." She winked at the agent before turning to Fitz and fixing him with an intense stare.

He suspected she was pulling this performance from the old S.H.I.E.L.D. lesson about public displays of affection and allusions to sex making people uncomfortable, but Simmons was a terrible liar. How was she managing to keep this up without dissolving into a puddle of nerves on the spot? Fitz was too surprised to be properly helpful. He didn't know what he was supposed to do other than stand there and look surprised that _Joan_ was so happy to be with _Jacob_.

That part wasn't all that difficult for him.

They mingled their way through three more agents in the room, and Fitz inwardly cursed when he saw one of the other pairs of SciOps scientists, the pair who hadn't even managed to stop the self-destruct sequence on the computer, walk up to one of the uniformed agents at the edge of the room to disclose that they had achieved their objective.

By this point, Simmons had managed to relax somewhat, toning down her doting wife act, though he was almost positive that he had half-moon shaped scars all over his arm from where she'd been holding on for dear life earlier.

"Oh. Are they leaving?" She asked Fitz softly.

The two of them stood in the middle of the room, trying to see what object the other pair handed off to the agent. They both breathed a sigh of relief that it wasn't a pen, but a tie clip.

"Yeah. Okay. Who're we chatting up next?"

"Chatting up?" Simmons echoed. "Are Jacob and Joan attempting a threesome tonight? This will be one memorable honeymoon."

Fitz ran one hand over his face in embarrassment while Simmons giggled. When he peeked over the tips of his fingers, he spotted an agent playing with the pen that had been diagrammed at the bottom of the page in his folder. He was twirling it around in his fingers like some sort of rock star while a pair of scientists stood in front of him, seemingly enthralled.

"Damn."

"What?"

Instead of answering her, Fitz linked their fingers together and led her over to the group.

"Oh," he heard her whisper.

-o-

Agent Wheelan found them in their basement lab the next morning, huddled together over one of their DWARFS at the center table, fully absorbed in the task at hand.

"Simmons, we 'ave ta use a lighter polymer fer this section here. I think tha density's interferin'."

"Well, yes, but how do you expect to keep these two panels intact then?"

Wheelan cleared his throat, and though they both looked in his direction, neither of them stood to their full height.

"Hello."

"Mornin'."

Their voices blended together.

Agent Wheelan sighed. "You knocked over a bookcase."

"It was an accident –" Simmons protested.

"We were doin' really well righ' up ta –" Fitz added.

"It's just that one of the other scientists started speaking badly about Fitz's character –"

"And tha agent was twirlin' tha thing aroun' –"

"I was just trying to remain in character –"

"Jacob an' Joan were very supportive o' one another's work –"

"Everything happened very fast."

"I' was quite unexpected."

Agent Wheelan just shook his head and let them get back to work, leaving the room to take his meeting with Agent Melinda May, intent on telling her that they were most definitely not ready to be field certified, no matter how good of a fit she thought his most promising scientists were for the team she was building.

He wasn't looking forward to telling the Cavalry no.

-o-

* * *

><p><strong>This is going up a little earlier than I had planned because I might be without a computer for a few days. Hope you guys are enjoying this!<strong>


	5. Chapter 5

_**Five.**_

Melinda May flicked through the file on the desk in front of her, face impassive while she scanned through assessment scores and academic records.

"I had hoped they would pass, but as you can see…" Wheelan sighed and straightened his tie when the expression on May's face didn't change. He cleared his throat. "I know the Council wants agents better prepared for field work after what happened with that Asgardian and in New York." May didn't say anything, so he continued, "I know you had them in mind for a specialized team, but they are clearly better suited to remain at SciOps." He paused when she fixed him with a stare, but still didn't respond. "Out of the field." He nodded decisively.

"Test them again." She closed the file with a quick snap. "I'll observe the assessments myself."

"There isn't another field assessment scheduled for three months."

"I'll set it up."

A week later, Fitz and Simmons sat through another written exam, passed another tech assessment that involved rewiring an entire security system, were given the medical all clear by Dr. Streiten (though Fitz was warned to cut back on the sweets and Simmons was told she needed to sleep more), and found themselves standing in the SciOps gymnasium with a small group of low level agents also looking to become field certified.

A severe looking Ops agent stood in front of a dark blue mat on the floor with a tablet in hand. He flicked through the list of agents and brought his eyes up to the scientists in their slacks and button downs and the communications agents who had come in just for the opportunity to take the assessment in their jeans and tees.

"Each of you has to pin one of our experienced agents, or at the very least, avoid being pinned," he informed them with a smirk. To Fitz and Simmons, it was obvious he didn't think either of them could do it.

Fitz cut his own gaze to one corner of the room where there was a line of agents, all with identical tablets in their hands, ready to judge them on whether they were coordinated, efficient, whether they could maintain their balance, and whatever else you were supposed to do when you evaded an attacker. The entire line of agents appeared to be going over the information on their tablets, except for one.

The one, an Asian woman in a business suit, was watching Fitz and Simmons instead. Her face was a careful mask of disinterest, but Fitz had a feeling she was much more interested than she let on. He'd never seen her before, not that he could remember. And Fitz had a very good memory. He elbowed Jemma in the side to get her attention, tuning out the agent at the edge of the mats who was still talking.

"Do ye know 'er?"

Jemma leaned a little closer to him and followed his line of sight.

"Don't think so. Why?"

"She keeps watchin' us."

Jemma shrugged. "Maybe she's the one marking our assessment."

Fitz nodded in agreement. "Yeah. Yer probably righ'."

They stayed side by side, whispering to one another as other agents were called up in groups of three to attempt to get by the level six agents assisting with the training exercise. One of the men kept sniffling and swiping at his nose, while the other two kept rolling their shoulders and cracking their knuckles as if trying to be intimidating.

It worked.

By the time Fitz and Simmons were called to the mat with another one of the SciOps agents, he was more nervous than he had been to begin with. He still didn't understand why they were even selected for the special assessment session. He still wasn't sure he wanted to go into the field. But Simmons was eager to prove herself and to have scientific adventures and he didn't want to be left behind.

So, he dropped his shoulders and balled his hands into fists; he stood on the balls of his feet, intent on dodging the agent until the timer went off and he would be deemed able to continue. Simmons, he noted out of the corner of his eye, was paired up with the agent with a cold. It was supposed to be a random assignment, but he thought he noticed the woman in the business suit offer a hint of a smile.

While he was busy dodging blows and ducking under limbs and spinning behind his assigned sparring partner, the agent at the other end of the mat with Simmons let out a mighty sneeze, startling them all, and Simmons took the moment that he was bent sniffling in a breath to aim a kick behind his knees and awkwardly pin him to the mat. The moment of distraction was enough for Fitz to do the same to his agent.

And he spent the next fifteen minutes waiting to advance to the next section of the assessment in shock while Simmons babbled excitedly next to him about how she was so happy they had finally passed hand to hand combat. There had been a brief argument amongst the agents marking them about how they shouldn't receive full marks because their sparring partners were distracted, but the woman in the business suit spoke up for them.

She was quiet, but her tone was firm as she said, "They saw their opportunities. They took them. Like any good agent would."

-o-

"All right. We now move on to espionage and subterfuge tactics. What's left of you anyway." The agent who had been leading the exam smirked again. With his dark hair and dark eyes and that smarmy grin, Simmons probably would have pegged him as a villain if this was a movie.

Their numbers had dwindled by more than half since so many had failed to get past the agents in hand to hand combat. Fitz and Simmons were the only scientists left. The rest were mostly graduates from the Communications side of S.H.I.E.L.D.

Simmons cocked her head to the side and watched as the agent picked up a stack of files from the woman in the suit that Fitz had pointed out earlier, the one who had argued for them. The woman was glaring at the other agent. She wasn't amused by him either.

"Your goal," he continued, the smirk absent now, "and in the interest in moving this thing along you'll be working in pairs to complete it, is to steal a vial of the very dangerous dendrotoxin from the scientist to whom you are assigned. You will be in a real working lab when you do so. Don't break anything. The equipment is very expensive. Your cover identities are in the files. Maintain them at all costs. An agent will be observing you." He handed out the folders as he spoke.

Jemma gave him a small smile when he handed her two files and gestured to Fitz as her partner. "You two are in Lab 6B, one floor down."

"Yes, third door on the right, we know where that is, thank you," she told him primly. She saw Fitz hold back a snicker. It was the lab right next door to their own.

The agent rolled his eyes and waved them off. "Agent May will evaluate you. She'll tell you when you can open your files."

The woman in the suit walked determinedly in front of them, and though Jemma was fairly certain she was wearing shoes with something of a heel, she didn't make a sound as she led them to the elevator.

The ride to the next floor down was quick, but silent. Fitz and Simmons kept glancing at one another, then Agent May, but she stared straight ahead at the door. As soon as it let out a little _ding _and the door opened she told them, "you have exactly five minutes to memorize everything about your cover identities," and left the elevator without them.

Simmons hurriedly opened a folder, and upon seeing it was a male cover, shoved it into Fitz's hands and opened the next one, scrambling out the door to keep up with the agent. She scanned her own file as she walked and discovered the same identity she'd had years ago when she first took the test at the Academy.

_Sarah Smith_

"Fitz," she hissed, not needing to memorize the information since scanning quickly through it brought it all right back to the surface, "is your David Smith married to Sarah Smith?"

"Yeah. Are ye Sarah, then?"

"Oh. Yes. It's funny. I've been her before."

"Yeah?" Fitz's mouth quirked up in a grin. "Me too. I mean, I've been David. I had to - "

"Less talking. More studying," Agent May broke in quietly.

"Oh, thank you," Simmons told her, folding the file shut and giving it to her, "but I know this cover. I believe we're ready to begin. Fitz? Are you good to start as well?"

"Yep. Nothin's changed since the last time." He handed his file over to May as well. "I don' know a safe way ta steal dendrotoxin though."

"I do." Jemma smiled.

"Guess she's in charge," May deadpanned.

Jemma only smiled wider when Fitz frowned.

-o-

"Dr. Streiten!" Jemma exclaimed, only narrowly remembering that she was supposed to be an American and not a Brit.

The doctor turned around from the table where he had been peering through a microscope to meet her gaze.

"Oh." She froze, remembering that there was the distinct possibility that _they_ didn't know one another.

"We've never met," Fitz covered easily, extending one hand as he stepped forward, "I'm David." He nodded to Jemma as Dr. Streiten removed the latex gloves he was wearing to shake hands. "My wife Sarah. She's a bit of a fan of your work. We were assigned to assist." He gave a shaky smile when Dr. Streiten turned to shake Jemma's hand. "What exactly are we assisting with?"

"Yes," Jemma chimed in a little too loudly as she let go of the doctor's hand. "No one explained." She hoped her cheeks weren't as red as they felt._ Acting as though she knew him. That was a rookie mistake. _

"Well," Dr. Streiten began patiently as if he were teaching a class, "one of the," he cleared his throat in amusement, "lower level scientists here, a biochemist, has a theory that she can modify dendrotoxin to use as something of a tranquilizer bullet."

"Well," Jemma said with something of a smug smile aimed at first the doctor, then Fitz, "that's just brilliant, isn't it? That scientist certainly knows her stuff."

"Yes, but it's a bit dangerous of a substance to work with, don't you think?" Fitz shot back with a warning look.

"Pssh." Jemma waved him off. "Science is danger, Fi - for heaven's sake, David. You know that."

They both turned back to Dr. Streiten who, with raised eyebrows and his bottom lip sticking out, appeared to be trying very hard not to laugh. Instead of laughing though, he cleared his throat and began explaining the project they were going to complete. Considering she had already run the same tests Dr. Streiten was performing in her own lab, just next door, and she knew that they would not yield positive results, Jemma tuned him out and began to let her eyes wander, trying to see where he was storing his samples of the dendrotoxin that he wasn't working with. Their best bet was to steal one of those. She took one step back so she was out of his line of sight while Fitz seamlessly took a step closer to him, nodding his head earnestly and maintaining eye contact, his mouth slightly open as if he couldn't believe what the other man was telling him.

Jemma rolled her eyes. He was laying it on a bit thick.

_Would he have stored the samples in the refrigerator? Was he visiting this lab or was he supposed to be pretending to work here full time? If he was just visiting, there should be a hazardous materials case somewhere. He would be transporting his supplies._

She waited for a pause in the conversation and watched as Fitz leaned in to look into the microscope in front of him with something of a grimace. She wrinkled her nose in amusement. "Dr. Streiten, I just love your lab. Is this art print up here one of yours?" She pointed above the desk in the corner when he glanced over at her.

"Oh. Huh. That is actually an artist's rendering of what happens to a brain in which the naegleria fowleri has taken up residence."

She narrowed her eyes. She hadn't really expected him to have an answer so quickly. _So this is supposed to be his lab. All right, then._

"It's a fascinating parasite. Destroys the nervous system. It's found in - "

"Warm waterways, yes. Very rare to see it in humans, but when it happens, death almost always follows." Jemma nodded her head and gave him a grin. "I find them fascinating as well."

From the microscope, Fitz groaned. "Can we please stop all the talk about parasites? If she had it her way, our house would be decorated with the most morbid things." He stood to his full height and eyed the other scientists with trepidation.

"Excuse me if we don't all share your love for monkey wallpaper."

"Monkeys?" Dr. Streiten asked in surprise. "You two decorating a nursery?"

"No!" Jemma responded louder than necessary. The idea of Fitz and children left her suddenly uneasy. "I'm sorry," she covered quickly, remembering her file. "That's something of a sore subject." She turned to face Fitz and added, "though that is further proof that I married a child."

"Hey!"

When he met her eyes she deliberately shot her gaze to the refrigerator in the corner, and he gave a short nod in understanding, what passed for hurt disappearing from his face very quickly.

"I'm not a child," he snapped, sounding like he usually did whenever he was about to start pouting because they were watching one of Jemma's favorite episodes of _Doctor Who_ instead of his. "I just happen to think that monkeys are great animals." He focused his attention on Dr. Streiten, and Jemma hoped that would get the other man to turn away from her just a bit more. "Where do you stand on monkeys?"

"I'm sorry. I don't - you want to know where I stand on monkeys?" Dr. Streiten sounded very, very confused. Jemma couldn't really blame him.

"Yes. Where do you stand?" Fitz repeated stubbornly. "Brilliant animals? Menace to the fauna kingdom? Would they make a good lab assistant? I think there are several species that would make excellent lab assistants. Have you ever worked with one? Or even a pet? My very own monkey… it would be so amazing. Come home, share a banana."

Jemma bit down on a smile. It was a stroke of luck that she made that comment about monkey wallpaper. They had landed on a topic that Fitz could speak about for days if necessary. She was confident he could hold Dr. Streiten's interest. She very carefully edged back toward the refrigerator as Fitz babbled on about his favorite species, why they could be trained to do useful work instead of relegated to test subjects. When she reached the edge of the counter next to the cooling unit, she picked up a latex glove from the counter and placed it on her left hand as quietly as she could. Moving just to her right, she opened the refrigerator door carefully and took a look inside for the samples.

They were the only thing in there.

_Of course. This is a test. Can't have Communications or Ops candidates running off with actual dendrotoxin or some other dangerous substance, can we?_

With her gloved hand, she picked up one of the vials, carefully closed the door, and turned back to the counter, spotting one of the smaller carrying cases that would enable her to conceal it. She chanced a look over at Fitz, whose eyes were wide as he gestured wildly with his hands.

"You can't be serious! There are numerous other animals we can test on. Simulations we can run. Monkeys should be off limits!"

She slipped the vial into the insulated case that was only just larger than the object itself and snapped it shut with a dull _click _that Dr. Streiten couldn't hear over Fitz's impassioned speech, and then slid the case into the inner pocket of her sweater, right next to a pen, before quickly walking back over to Fitz and discreetly giving him a thumb's up. He saw the signal, but ignored her in favor of continuing to scold Dr. Streiten for supporting monkeys as test subjects.

"F -" Jemma began to admonish him, but changed her mind as she remembered he was David right now, not Fitz. "If I had a dollar for every time he talked about monkeys," Jemma remarked, stretching the words out, "I'd never have to work another day in my life."

"You'd get bored without the work," Fitz intoned automatically, not responding to the implication that he may have been obsessed with the animals in question.

She nodded her head emphatically, eyes wide and overly bright, suddenly nervous that pocketing the dendrotoxin wasn't enough to get them to pass. She turned to the doorway where Agent May was still standing. The other agent gave her something that was probably supposed to resemble a smile.

"Mission complete."

"Well done," Dr. Streiten added.

-o-

"I don't understand," one of the Communications agents said as she struggled to clip herself into her vest. "If this is just a simulation, why do we have to wear bulletproof vests?"

"Full gear to make sure you have maneuverability, that you understand how to use everything that's standard issue," the agent in front of them explained. He swiped his hand along his tablet. "Eight of you left. So, two teams of four." He muttered something under his breath that sounded suspiciously like _smallest final field assessment group ever._

Fitz and Simmons exchanged a look as they hurriedly clipped their own vests into place and took the guns that approximated standard issue S.H.I.E.L.D. weapons from one of the other agents, clipping them into holsters at their waist.

"You four," the agent with the tablet gestured to those on the left side of the room who still weren't fully geared up. "You're group A. Follow Agent Brown there and he'll give you the objective." He shook his head as the Communications agent who still couldn't get her vest all the way on followed along with the rest of the group behind Agent Brown. "You four," he said to the rest of them, "are group B. You're with me. Let's go."

To the group's surprise, he led them out of the building and into a parking garage where a van with a S.H.I.E.L.D. logo was waiting for them. The four agents shuffled their feet and looked at one another as he climbed into the passenger seat and Agent May, who they hadn't even realized was walking behind them all, got into the driver's seat. She turned her head just enough to catch Fitz's eye.

"Get in. Last test is in a new location."

-o-

The agent in the passenger seat barked out orders for the fifteen minutes that they were in the van, but he never gave them his name. Instead, he had them go through an equipment checklist, a weapons assessment, and learn each others names and jobs (Fitz - engineering, Simmons - biochem, Griffin - communications, Blake - operations), and explained that they were going in blind with no floor plan, no numbers on security personnel. The simulation was meant to mimic a high risk plan, one that had actually been completed by agents in the past. As long as they performed the task as well as or better than the agents who took on the mission originally, they would pass.

When they pulled to a stop outside of a building in an old warehouse district, he turned to them with a slightly sadistic smile on his face and opened up a small case, revealing tiny plastic-looking circles. "Put these in your ears. They're all tuned to the same frequency, so you'll be able to communicate if you need to split up."

"Why would we need ta split up?" Fitz asked before he could stop himself.

The older agent shrugged. "You're the ones who will be coming up with the plans." He waited until each of them had taken an earpiece and pushed it in before he continued. "The objective is simple. You're rescuing a hostage." Flicking through his tablet quickly, he showed them a picture of what looked like a crash test dummy from an old car commercial. "Unconscious because of the ordeal he's been through. Your job is to get in, get him out through the back door, with as few casualties as possible."

"Casualties," Jemma echoed softly. She reached her hand out across the seat, then squeezed the armrest instead of Fitz's hand on the other side. For this test, she was more than a little nervous. But holding Fitz's hand would make her look weak in front of the others.

"Yes. Now, you all know that S.H.I.E.L.D. teams have an element of acceptable risk, but I will tell you, the team that performed this extraction successfully in the field only lost one agent - and that was only because he stayed behind to distract the enemy. You need to do better."

He opened the door and stepped out of the vehicle, taking a deep breath, and the younger agents scrambled to follow him.

"There's a time limit," Agent May reminded them as she exited the vehicle as well.

"Ah, yes. Three hours. And you have to enter through the front door and exit through the back. Not negotiable. Agent May and I will be monitoring you through your coms and through cameras throughout the course. Time starts now."

-o-

* * *

><p><strong>The next chapter will conclude the final field assessment test, but it's very long, so I thought this was a good place to give you guys a break.<strong>


	6. Chapter 6

**Last chapter. Just a warning - this one is quite bit longer than the others. You finally get to see how the field assessment plays out! Let me know what you think.**

* * *

><p>"Wait!" Jemma grabbed Blake's arm just as he was about to kick in the door, his paintball gun brandished in his hand. "Look," she hissed, pointing to the keypad on the side of the door. "You can't just kick in a reinforced steel door that's connected to an electronic security system. Honestly." She turned to Fitz, ready to ask him to work on the door, but Griffin was already pulling a device from one pocket and had a screwdriver in her other hand to access the underside of the panel.<p>

When Griffin nodded her head a few moments later, it was Fitz who pulled out an extendable mirror from one of his pockets, crouching low and positioning it at the bottom of the door while Blake pushed it open. He flicked the mirror side to side while Blake edged closer and closer to the doorway and Griffin and Simmons stayed back in what Academy instructors called the "safety zone." No shrapnel would find them, and no bullets would cut around corners.

"We're good," Fitz finally said to them, pulling the mirror back in. Griffin took it from him and pocketed it while he spoke. "No one in tha entrance. Lots o' old shelvin' though. Plenty o' places ta hide. Probably a good idea ta keep our guns out."

Jemma bit her lip. "One of us should probably scan for heat signatures as we go. That would be the best way to know if an offensive was coming our way."

"You should do tha'," Fitz agreed, already drawing his own weapon.

"Okay. Good. I'll take point," Blake said, stepping through the doorway and quickly scanning the room. Fitz followed, Simmons at his side, while Griffin brought up the rear, her own gun out.

The group spent what felt like hours peering around corners and attempting to get the lay of the land, not running into anyone.

"What kind of facility is this supposed to be?" Griffin hissed as they made their way in formation down a narrow corridor.

"Looks like it's designed to mimic an office building," Jemma remarked, scanner out in front of her, but all it was picking up was the four of them.

"Why would there be a hostage in an office building?" Griffin asked her.

"Would you two be quiet?" Blake cut in. "We might not be picking up any heat signatures, but that doesn't mean there aren't people here."

"I'm not just scanning for heat," Jemma muttered under her breath. She rolled her eyes at Fitz and he smiled at her in response. When she looked down at the screen in her hands though, there were more blips. "Wait," she murmured, holding one hand out to catch Fitz's arm. Griffin halted behind them and Blake, realizing no one was following him, stopped a few steps ahead. He surveyed the area ahead of him. They were coming to a fork in the corridor.

"What is it, Simmons?" Fitz still held his weapon ahead of him, but he moved closer to her, bending his head to look at the readings.

"There are people down the left fork. I'd say there's a room about four feet down on the left side of that hall. There are at least five people in the room. I'm not sure what the readings will be on our hostage since he's, erm, plastic, but it's the only group of people we've seen so far." She looked up questioningly, but she didn't point her gaze at Blake who seemed to have placed himself in charge of their team, but instead, at Fitz. He nodded his head. "Our best bet -" she began to the others.

"-is to find out who's in there," Fitz finished for her. "Where's tha' mirror, Griffin?"

Griffin edged closer to them and pulled the mirror from her pocket and placed her weapon in her holster, all set to go around the corner herself and check it out.

"Wait," Blake snapped, holding up a hand to stop her. "Say all five are hostiles. You need coverage. I'm with you." He waved his hand at Fitz and Simmons. "You two stay about three feet back from us."

"Standard gunfire spread. Give them a separate target that they have to recalibrate their aim for. Got it." Jemma nodded her head, the fingers of one hand twitching at her side while those gripping the device in her hand tightened.

She didn't have to remind them that the people in the room were likely at least level six agents as most of the rest of the assessment staff had been and were therefore, very good shots. Three feet wasn't going to mean anything if the agents opened fire on them. The Communications and Ops agents were all fresh out of the Academy, Level Ones. Blake and Griffin might have been good, but they weren't going to be _that good._

Griffin led the way, extending the mirror as she walked, Blake just a few inches off her flank, gun at the ready.

"You know what would be smart?" Jemma mumbled to Fitz, an idea forming in her mind, as she followed along with him, a respectable distance behind their teammates, of course.

"Wha's tha'?"

"Something that would allow us to see through a wall a bit better. It's entirely likely that the agents in the room are going to spot the mirror. If we had something we could put on the wall to see in, something portable, easy to carry, that we could…" Her voice trailed off, and though her eyes remained alert, her mind was a million miles away.

"Like tha ol' x-ray glasses?" Fitz asked, trying to keep her talking so he didn't remember that he was terrified of a bunch of S.H.I.E.L.D. agents in a room likely armed with nothing more than paint guns.

"Yes. Well, no. We know those didn't work the way they were supposed to. But maybe something chemical, something that could react with backscatter technology? We would at least have a general outline of people and weapons."

"I'll add it ta tha list o' all tha other things we're workin' on," Fitz teased her.

"Good."

They halted their steps and their conversation as Griffin crouched a foot away from the door. There was a small window in the middle of the door, and Griffin made sure to stay out of sight as she pushed the small mirror to the bottom of the door, just where the sliver of light made its way through the jamb. She looked back at Blake and shook her head, mouthing, _can't see_. He gestured to the window with his chin, and she nodded, her mouth forming a small "oh" as she gave a slow exhalation, presumably to calm her nerves. Griffin raised her arm, angling the mirror and holding it just at the bottom edge of the window.

"Should 'ave brought small cameras an' receivers instead. More efficient," Fitz muttered in annoyance.

"More expensive for a training exercise," Jemma countered quietly.

Griffin eyed the mirror apprehensively and she pointed with her other hand, letting Blake know that the group appeared to be clustered at the far end of the room. As she attempted to move the mirror though, the edge tapped on the bottom of the window and her eyes widened in horror as she quickly retracted it, crabwalking back another foot and trying to draw her weapon at the same time.

For Jemma, it seemed everything was playing out in slow motion, but she somehow still didn't have the time to react appropriately. Her fingers barely grazed her weapon before Fitz was standing directly in front of her and Blake had placed himself in a ready fighting stance between the door and the rest of the team.

When the first agent came through the door seconds later, gun already drawn and aimed in their direction, Blake pulled the trigger on his weapon on autopilot, hitting the other agent squarely in the neck with a splat of blue paint. The agent nodded and immediately took a step back, sitting on the ground to indicate that Blake was successful in his kill shot.

The door, though it hadn't been the team's intention, acted as a bottleneck, and Blake took out the next three people much the same way. The fifth person never came through the door though, so it was Blake who moved forward, Griffin back on her feet and behind him. Blake crouched down low on the side of the door, his arm going out and firing blindly into the room. Griffin did the same above him.

"Successful hit," came a voice from the room.

Jemma breathed a sigh of relief and she and Fitz moved forward to catch up with their teammates.

Blake led them into the room, with Griffin taking up the rear again. It had become some sort of unspoken agreement to not trust the two scientists to be the leads with weapons. Jemma couldn't really blame them, though she happened to know that Fitz had excellent aim from all the time they had spent improving the way several of S.H.I.E.L.D.'s weapons worked.

The room they entered appeared to be a security office of sorts, though it was much larger than most they'd seen before. There was a bank of video monitors, apparently set up with live feeds of the building. Half of them were black though.

"I got this," Griffin said before anyone could even ask.

She sat at the console, fingers flying over the keyboard of the computer there, but none of the black screens came back to life. She furrowed her brow in concentration while Jemma began to search the rest of the room. Blake remained at the door on high alert and Fitz ventured further into the wide space, intent on trying to figure out who they were actually supposed to be up against.

Jemma flicked through papers on a desk, but all she found were message pads reminding someone named Larry to call his wife, a grocery list, lots of blank paper. Nothing that told them what they were even doing here.

"'t's a private security company," Fitz told the rest of them from the other side of the room. He held up a business card from his desk. "Owned by a Mr. Hammer."

"Hammer? But doesn't he provide some of the technology we use? Don't we have a contract with his company?" Jemma asked in confusion.

"Maybe he's looking for power, not just money," Blake responded. "A lot of people in the weapons and tech business want to be the most powerful man in the room, not just the guy with the most money to show for that big gun."

"Tha man makes a good point," Fitz agreed.

"So, what? He's kidnapped someone for leverage against us?" Griffin asked sarcastically as her fingers clicked and clacked.

"That doesn't make sense," Jemma agreed, "No one agent would be worth a four person extraction team that goes in completely blind. Not to S.H.I.E.L.D." She shook her head. "Has to be another reason."

-o-

In a trailer at the back of the building, May sat ramrod straight in her seat, earpiece in place, eyes on the monitor in front of her. She wasn't surprised that the group was speculating about why they were there. They were kids. They still didn't understand that with SHIELD, you didn't ask why. You just did as you were told. It was part of the deal. She saw her partner deduct a point from each of them out of the corner of their eye.

So far though, they were doing much better than even she had thought. The kids were good. Griffin was quick to follow the orders that made sense, but willing to speak up if she thought it was dangerous - good traits for a second in command. Blake was quick to take the lead, quick to assess the situation at hand. The two of them would actually fit well on the same team.

They weren't the ones she was interested in though.

-o-

"Okay, I can't get the cameras in these zones up, but I've got a look at the schematics." Griffin motioned for Fitz and Simmons to join her at the monitors and she brought up the file she'd found on one of the screens. "See this here - this whole block of rooms is self contained. All the same size, each have their own plumbing, electricity controlled from outside, automatic doors, no windows."

"Cells," Fitz and Blake said at the same time.

"That would be the most logical place for the hostage, wouldn't it?" Jemma asked.

"Can you bring that block up on the security feed?" Fitz said at the same time.

Griffin was already doing it and she pointed at one of the screens. "This camera is from the door on the only way into the cell block. There's no other exit."

Fitz's eyes flitted back and forth from the camera feed to the blueprints Griffin had pulled up. "Can I see tha hall outside o' tha'?"

Griffin did as he asked, and showed him the hall, where a trio of guards were standing there talking.

"They don't look like they're on high alert or anything, do they," Jemma mused.

"Can you go through tha other feeds, see where there're guards who actually look like they care abou' their jobs?"

Griffin started rapidly switching amongst the footage, pictures sliding fast on the monitors around her, and Jemma had no idea how she was managing to keep up with it all at once. She glanced at Fitz, but his eyes were still taking everything in as he looked between the blueprints and the pictures he was being shown. Jemma could practically see his brain working as his jaw slacked and his eyes focused, the edge of his tongue darting out to press against his upper lip before he pointed to one of the monitors.

"There. Tha's where he is."

"How do you know?" Griffin didn't hide the tone of surprise. She was impressed.

"Three guards on one door. Tha room is suppose' to be a private office." He pointed with his other hand to a spot on the blueprint. "Private office with private bathroom and a safe. Security cameras inside are turned off even though tha rest on tha floor're workin' perfectly."

"Sounds right to me," Blake chimed in from the door. "I'll need to see the blueprints."

"'s all right. I can get us there."

"You want to draw me a map?"

"You wanna waste tha time?" Fitz countered.

The two men stared at one another for a moment and Jemma's lips twitched in amusement when it was Blake that broke first.

"You sure you know the map by heart?"

"Memorization is one o' my many strong suits."

"It really is," Jemma agreed.

-o-

"Huh. They didn't take the bait of the cells."

"You sound surprised," May responded dryly, watching the group pass from one of their monitored checkpoints to the next, everyone except for Simmons with weapons out and ready. Simmons had her device in hand, scanning the facility as they went, making sure they weren't about to be ambushed.

"First team I've seen who hasn't gone directly to the cells on this assessment and then had to backtrack to figure out where they should be. They might get this done faster than anyone else. Maybe they aren't useless."

"You're not used to testing the SciOps kids, are you?"

He didn't respond, and May didn't look away from the screens in front of her, listening to the chatter from the kids as they discussed the route in hushed whispers.

-o-

"You sure we're going the right way?"

Jemma rolled her eyes at Blake asking for the third time, answering for Fitz as he peered around another corner, "He's sure."

"I think Blake's just worried that we haven't seen anyone again for a while. It's suspicious."

"Tha whole place is suspicious," Fitz murmured to himself.

They continued their path in silence, pausing to take corners carefully, staggering the distance between them when Fitz gestured for them to do so, and switching positions when Blake gave them a signal. It was Jemma's gasp that alerted them that something was wrong, just as they reached the open space of the foyer before the office they wanted.

Fitz instantly froze, not turning his head to look at her.

"Jem?"

"Heat signatures," she whispered urgently. "They're popping up everywhere, Fitz. Everywhere!"

Griffin moved to Jemma's back and peered at the screen in her hand before she raised her weapon above her.

"Vents!"

The four of them flattened themselves against the walls and behind columns as splatterings of red paint appeared on the floor where they had just been standing, and Blake and Griffin let loose with their fire, aiming into the slats of the air vents along the hallway.

There was a chorus of "successful hit" from above them, but Blake looked confused, as if he wasn't sure if he should keep shooting. He gave a panicked look to the others and Griffin shrugged her shoulders in response. She wasn't sure if they had hit them all either.

Jemma feverishly counted the blips on the screen that signaled the agents above their heads, ignoring the ones that were rapidly approaching them from the foyer.

"Jemma!" Fitz hissed from the other side of the hall, his gun aimed toward the foyer. "How-"

"Seven above us," she answered before her could finish, "six coming from in front of us."

Fitz briefly closed his eyes and said, "you hit everyone in tha vents."

Griffin took him at his word and edged her way along the wall, closer to the firefight that was approaching them.

"You're sure?" Blake asked before he was willing to move, still crouched at Fitz's side.

"Absolutely. Seven different voices."

"Okay. Nice, man."

-o-

"Hmph."

"You thought we'd lose one of them there, didn't you?" May quirked an eyebrow making a note about Fitz's observation skills and Simmons' quick analysis of the numbers.

"Fast reaction times. I'll give them that."

-o-

_Fft. Fft. FFFffftt._

She had expected it to sound like actual bullets. But the more she was hearing the red paintballs fly through the air and hit the walls and floor, it sounded like darts. Jemma wondered for a moment why S.H.I.E.L.D. didn't use some sort of laser tag system instead; there wouldn't be room to argue whether they'd got hit or whether they'd transferred paint on them another way, and the laser-receiving points on combat wear could double as a gauge of their accuracy.

As someone who now had red paint all over her shoes, it was a thought that persisted at the back of her mind, even as she ducked down with Fitz behind a large potted fern to avoid getting hit. The hand holding her gun trembled, but she edged her arm around the side of the pot and fired blindly toward the enemy.

She was fairly certain she hadn't hit anyone, but it gave Fitz a chance to reload and Griffin a chance to take shelter behind the column next to them. The white walls around them were turning a very ugly shade of crimson, and it was starting to worry her. She was remembering not being able to take down her opponents in hand to hand combat, failing to retrieve her objectives during espionage training, and now, she was sitting on the floor in the middle of a firefight and her best friend was doing most of the work.

_Jemma Simmons doesn't fail, _she reminded herself. _Forget about the earlier assessments. _

She took a breath, forced her hand steady, and fired again, leaving her monitoring device on the floor between them. Each time one of them stopped shooting, Blake took up the slack for the three of them. She didn't know how he managed to reload so quickly, or how he managed to move from one column to the next so fast, but soon he was next to them and there were no more red paint splatters coming their way.

It was Griffin who stood and cautiously moved beyond her column though to give the all clear.

-o-

"They need better weapons training. Their aim is crap. They've probably used most of their ammo. Mark that."

-o-

Griffin hooked up a cable and a small computerized device to the keypad to the office, watching numbers spin across the screen until the door unlocked with a beep and a soft click.

"Signs of life?" Blake asked Jemma.

She shook her head. "No. But - the air vents before? I think maybe there's something in them that shields the heat signatures. I might not be able to pick things up until they're right on top of us if they've got people hiding in the vents."

"Why would they even have people in the vents?" Griffin wondered. "How would they have known where we were?"

"Maybe someone in the security office sent them some kind of signal." Blake was sliding the door open and poking the end of his gun through the crack. No shots were fired, no alarms sounded, so he pushed the door open the rest of the way and crept inside.

Their "hostage" was tied to a chair in the middle of the room, a bag of tools and what were probably supposed to be torture devices next to him.

"So…" Griffin looked around the room apprehensively. "They were torturing him for information?"

"Looks that way," Jemma agreed, walking right up to the plastic pieces held together with screws that resembled a human being. There were knicks and scratches in the material of his arms and chest, and she thought someone might have created them on purpose as a way to show where their pretend colleague may have been tortured. "If this were a real agent, we'd have to take time to assess him. Bind his wounds, things like that."

"We don't have time," Blake argued, moving next to her and looking at the same markings she was. "If these are supposed to mimic marks from torture, these would all be shallow - quick and sharp slices to inflict pain and make a point, but not serious enough to do any real physical damage." He worked knots as he spoke, untying the dummy from the seat and hoisting it over one shoulder.

"You gonna be able to shoot like that," Griffin checked.

"I'll make do," he said, grunting under the weight of the mannequin and moving back toward Fitz and the door. "Which way to the back entrance?"

"This way," Fitz led them out.

-o-

"Not just the SciOps kids who're smart now, huh?"

May rolled her eyes.

-o-

The group spent nearly twenty minutes cautiously making their way to the ground floor of the building. There was a moment when Blake was breathing heavy and sliding along on paint splatters on the floor and Griffin suggested maybe they should take an elevator down to save time that had everyone looking at her like she was insane.

"Right." Griffin nodded her head before rolling her eyes. "Stupid. Sorry. Elevator in is one thing. Elevator to get out when they know we're here is asking to get cornered and shot at."

Fitz grumbled under his breath as they all slipped and slid through the wet paint about how much of an inconvenience it was.

"Honestly," he said out of the corner of his mouth, "why don' they jus' shoot sedatives? I' would be easier. No mess."

"Yes," Jemma answered sarcastically. "That's just what I want, to be sedated and left in a building with who knows what kind of side effects, falling back and cracking my head open on this floor."

Fitz nodded as he realized she was right, but it sparked something in the back of his mind. "Those dendrotoxins you've been workin' with. You think you could make a safer tranquilizer, maybe somethin' immediate, with them?"

"I'll add it to the list," Jemma grinned, but the smile dropped when she moved to adjust the mannequin on Blake's shoulders as he stumbled.

Instead of their usual formation, Griffin took up the rear while Fitz took point, and Jemma attempted to help Blake navigate stairwells and sharp corners as best she could while monitoring for any incoming threats.

It wasn't until they reached the bottom floor and the very back of the building, just where they needed to be, that they ran into a whole new set of problems.

Blake removed the mannequin from his shoulders and plopped it unceremoniously down on the floor. Fitz and Simmons had frozen ahead of him, and he wanted to see what the hold up was.

Wordlessly, she pointed to the screen in her hands. It was a sea of dots, indicating the room in front of them was full of the enemy. And with the huge open space of what was essentially the shipping and receiving room of a warehouse, there was no telling what kind of coverage, if any, they would have.

Blake motioned for Griffin to join them, gesturing for the mirror that she had kept in her pocket. She handed it over, and he crept along the wall with it out in front of him, but whatever he saw in the mirror had him shaking his head and soundlessly jogging back to the rest of the group.

"How many?" Fitz whispered.

"I don't know. A lot." Blake handed the mirror back to Griffin and rubbed his face with his other hand. "And I don't know how we'll even get out once we get through them."

"What do you mean? Why not?" Jemma crossed her arms in front of her, the console dangling from the fingers of one hand.

"The blast doors're down, then?" Fitz sighed when Blake nodded and braced his hands on the wall, thinking.

"Blast doors?" Griffin echoed. "But, this is designed to be an office building. It's a warehouse mocked up to be an office building. What the hell would there be blast doors for?"

"It's the office building for a weapons developer," Jemma whispered. "The large open space of a receiving bay could easily be converted to a testing facility. Blast doors would be lowered to prevent the spread of any damage resulting from explosives tests." She paused, her face white. "They can't actually be using explosives though, can they? It's an assessment. A mock mission. They can't actually - "

" - use anythin' tha' could kill us, no," Fitz agreed. "But there're plenty o' other things they could use tha' are loud enough they'd wan' ta make sure i' wasn't heard outside."

"Flashbombs, noisemakers, things like that to disorient us and give them the upper hand," Blake added thoughtfully.

"Give them the upper hand," Griffin muttered, pacing now, "because numbers don't do that for them."

"No, they don'." Fitz pushed himself away from the wall. "I have an idea."

-o-

"This should be good."

May leaned forward, ignoring him and trying to focus on the plan Fitz was outlining. She nodded as he spoke to the others. It could work.

-o-

"I don't like this plan," Jemma murmured for the fourth time as Fitz went over an alternate route to get into the testing room with Blake.

"Yeah, you said that already," Griffin reminded her.

"Fitz," Jemma tried again, one hand self consciously drifting to the top of her vest, "we need to take a different approach."

"Guy's got a good plan," Blake answered her before Fitz could. "We don't have the time to come up with something else."

"I just - I don't think we should split up." Jemma drew in a sharp breath when she heard a noise coming from down the hall.

"We don't really have any other options," Blake said as Fitz hoisted the mannequin over his shoulder and began shuffling down one end of the hall with Griffin. Fitz nodded at Jemma, but didn't say anything, as Blake ushered her in the opposite direction, gun drawn. When the lone agent came down the corridor, a quick shot to the middle of his chest, and the agent held his hands up silently in surrender, taking a seat in the middle of the floor to show the team he was down for the count.

"Be careful," Jemma whispered across the space of the corridor as Griffin and Fitz made their way to one of the rooms at the end that Fitz was so sure was a lab.

"He'll be fine," Blake said, pointing to Jemma's side, reminding her to draw her weapon. "We've got comms, we'll hear if he needs anything," he added for good measure.

Jemma's eyes widened. "I'm worried about Griffin as well," she snapped. "We lose one person and it lowers our marks significantly."

"Whatever you say." Blake smirked.

-o-

"What else do I need?" Griffin asked as she stuffed a few more bottles into the box in front of her. She didn't say how bad this was that neither of them were going to have free hands when they needed them.

Fitz just motioned her over to the table and began assembling the ingredients she had laid out in front of him, and pouring liquid into the empty bottles in the box.

"You 'ave ta keep them steady while we're walkin'."

"I know."

"And ta activate them," Fitz went on as though she hadn't said anything, "you throw them as hard as you can. Don' hit tha agents. We don' want points deducted fer actually harmin' anyone."

"Right. Just smoke. No exploding glass on the guys with the paintball guns. Got it."

"Okay. Good." Fitz furrowed his brow and focused on the task at hand - measuring out the correct amounts of the substances. He could hear Jemma's voice in one ear reminding him that he didn't need to use a lot in each bottle either.

-o-

"Remember, Fitz. We don't need loads of smoke. Too much, and we won't be able to see either. The element of surprise won't matter." Jemma didn't have to see him to know that he was probably rolling his eyes at the reminder. She just didn't want him blinding them all. Not that they would actually be blind. It would just obscure their vision for a few moments before it began to clear. It wasn't even anything that dense. Closer to water vapor, early morning fog.

_I should have gone with him. I'm clearly the better chemist._

Across the room from her Blake held up a bottle of red liquid instead of voicing his question and she shook her head.

She lined up a row of jars on the lab table in front of her and hurried through her own preparations.

_Flash bombs. Smoke bombs. Feels like we're teenagers on a pranking spree instead of secret agents._

When she was done layering her own sequence of chemicals into the jars, she carefully screwed on all the lids and nodded to Blake, who had taken to peeking out the door periodically. She took that to mean she was taking too long.

"All set," she told hims as she gathered an armful of jars into her hands.

Blake took up the rest, cradling them with one arm, his gun ready in the other hand, and he spoke to Fitz through the comms, "We're heading out to start the distraction. Are you two ready?"

-o-

Fitz grunted in response as he hoisted the mannequin back over one shoulder, his knees bending under the weight.

Griffin answered instead as she carefully stuffed bottles into the few empty pockets she had. "We're heading out now. See you in the bay."

-o-

Blake took the steps at the end of the corridor two at a time, but Simmons couldn't move that fast when she was loaded down with the jars and she wasn't used to the physical requirements of being in the field. She paused in the middle of the set of stairs to catch her breath while he moved into the next floor corridor. She groaned and hurried up after him, but entered the next floor to a string of paintballs flying by her, so she turned and moved in the opposite direction while Blake handled the return fire, only to turn a corner and run smack into a man playing the enemy.

"Oh, Bloody hell."

He was so surprised, he didn't even draw his weapon, and she took the chance to elbow him in the side since her hands were full, and tried to move away. She only succeeded in annoying him though, and he tilted his head to the side with something of a smirk and drew his gun. She shut her eyes and turned her head, but shots never hit her. Instead, Blake rounded the corner and shot the man in the middle of the chest.

"Jesus, Simmons. Who let you out of the lab?"

-o-

"Simmons?" Fitz shook his head, trying to hear through the comms a little bit better. "What's going on?" He and Griffin turned a corner and he banged the side of the mannequin into the wall, but he didn't even notice. Griffin didn't mention it either since they were coming up on the door opening they needed. The mannequin was an unconscious prisoner anyway; it wasn't like the guy would feel it.

-o-

"I'm fine." Jemma adjusted the jars in her hands as she and Blake made their way to one of paths that ran along side the upper reaches of the testing room. She didn't have a problem with heights, but when she looked out over the railing to the floor below, her stomach dropped a bit.

"I'm fine too," Blake muttered, just loud enough for the comms to pick him up.

-o-

Griffin smothered a chuckle as she peeked her head around the corner of the doorway and took stock of where the enemy was located. She took a quick glance up to see if Blake and Simmons had found a good spot to cover them.

-o-

"We're in position," Blake added, lining up his jars on the floor by Simmons' feet and taking her gun from her.

-o-

"Throw as hard as you can toward the back of the room, Simmons. We've got the front," Griffin answered. "Ten seconds. Then start the fireworks."

-o-

Jemma counted to ten in her head, and just as she reared an arm back and prepared to throw, there was a crash and rising smoke from the floor below on the other side of the room. She gave a grim smile and let go while Blake started firing on their opponents.

_I hope this works._

-o-

The firestorm of smoke bombs and cheap magician's parlour tricks didn't last long since they could only carry so many jars and bottles each, but Griffin was still throwing hers into the melee when Jemma and Blake joined them in the corridor. Fitz, still with the mannequin over his shoulder in case they had to make a run for it, was crouched next to her, firing, but he wasn't landing too many hits through the smoke.

"How many were left standing? Could you tell from up top?" Griffin asked as she tossed another bottle toward the blast doors.

"Five before we took the stairs down," Blake answered, taking aim and firing into the haze. "I think that's four now."

"We should make a run for the control panel before the smoke clears," Griffin said breathlessly. "It's our best chance. And we have to get the blast doors open in order to leave. By now, they've probably realized we're not throwing anything from the upper level anymore."

"Here, I'll take those. You shoot." Jemma took the last three bottles that Griffin had been holding onto, and Griffin took the lead instead, running for the first table she saw that would give them cover while Blake laid paintball fire behind them. As she reached the table, she crouched down and provided the cover for the rest of them to run.

It was like some weird game of tag as they made their way from one point of cover in the room to the next, Jemma throwing smoke bombs along the way, paintballs whizzing over their heads and making the floor slick as they reached their destination. There were still agents shooting at them, but they'd made it to the control panel and were partially hidden by a set of tables and a column; that was the important part.

"Almos' there," Fitz muttered as he let go of the mannequin to help Griffin remove the metal covering and get access to the wires. The mannequin dropped to the floor with an odd crunching sound - head first. 'Wha'?" he asked as everyone looked at him in horror.

"You just dropped Manny on his head," Blake remarked before firing off a few warning shots when one of the agents popped their head up from behind a desk.

"Wha'? It's no' like he's a real person. He's fine. He's plastic." Fitz waved it off and went back to work. "I'd never drop a _real person_ on his head. Honestly." He pulled the panel completely out of the way to reveal a mess of wires of all different colors to Griffin who looked very confused.

She followed the edge of one wire with a finger, shook her head, and went back and did the same with another, and then another.

"Griffin?" Blake asked from his position behind her as he took a few more shots. "I'm going to run out of paint soon. I've already used my extra clips and I'm on to Simmons' now."

"Right. Sorry… I just… this isn't like any system I've ever seen before. I don't -" She balled her hands into fists and chewed on her lip. "I don't think I can override it from here."

"Are you bloody serious righ' now?" Fitz yelped as a paintball flew past his head and he held the panel in front of him like a shield.

"I think it's going to require a double override," Griffin explained carefully.

-o-

"And now it gets interesting. The clock is ticking."

May sighed. If it wasn't against policy, she would have knocked this guy out and graded the assessment herself an hour ago.

But he was right. They had less than 30 minutes left.

-o-

"A double override?" Jemma called to her from her spot on the other side of the panel. "How do we do that?"

"We've got to cut power to this whole section, let it reboot. Then I can do a manual override of the door… if I can figure out how exactly to do that."

"There's no other way?" Blake's voice wasn't as angry as Fitz had been, but they could all tell his patience was wearing thin too.

"Well…" Griffin thought for a moment, trying to catalog all the things she knew about electronics and door locks and everything in between, but this particular type of electronics wasn't her area of expertise. "Look, I'm not an electrical engineer, okay? I'm communications, not a wizard."

Blake looked up at the ceiling as though pleading with the assessment deities for help.

"'s possible tha' overloading i' could make it malfunction," Fitz broke into their trains of thought. "Hit i' with enough power, and i' could short circuit on it's own."

"You think?" Griffin wondered.

"Is that faster than a full reboot?" Blake said at the same time.

"Definitely," Fitz, Griffin, and Jemma all told him.

"Do it." Blake loaded the last of the paintball bullets into his gun.

Jemma's empty gun now lay on the floor, but she picked it up and holstered it, just in case. They weren't supposed to leave any S.H.I.E.L.D. equipment behind, no matter how small. She set to work helping Griffin and Fitz reroute any electrical components they could into the control panel for the day.

It didn't take long for Blake to run out of paintball bullets from his last clip either.

"Guys."

"We know," Griffin snapped, tossing him her own gun, which was down to its final ammo as well, before turning back and throwing subtlety aside, ripping out a chunk of wires. "What?" she asked when Fitz looked at her aghast.

"Jus' - don' electrocute anyone… or blow anythin' up."

"Oh, God." Jemma shifted back where she was on her knees at the base of the door. She crept to the side and lifted a fire extinguisher from its hook on the side of the desk behind them. It got a couple of shots fired in her direction, and she was breathing heavy when she fell back to her original position, but having it made her feel a little better. Griffin shot her a surprised glance. "Just in case. I don't want us sparking any fires and failing because of third degree burns."

"Lab rats," Griffin muttered under her breath, but she was smiling, "safety first."

The three of them worked in silence for a few moments until Fitz nodded to both of the women. He had a loose wire in his hand when he called to Blake, "Prob'ly wan' ta take cover under tha desk." He waited for Griffin to move back to the desk, and when Jemma didn't immediately follow, he gestured with his chin.

"No. I'm staying right here. Just in case you need a fire put out." She pulled the pin from the extinguisher and nodded at him, hands shaking.

He sighed and took the loose wires, scraped down to their copper, and carefully scraped them along another set, sending a spark into the system and setting off a chain of pops and crackles. He gave a high pitched chirping sound that was likely his attempt to stifle a surprised yell, and Jemma aimed the extinguisher in his direction, but there were no flames.

And the blast door didn't move.

"What. The. Hell." Fitz looked at the wires in front of him, the control panel, his fingers tracing routes, his eyes darting everywhere."That should have worked."

"Not enough power," Griffin mumbled, crawling over to the door with him.

"No, it's not that. Well, it is, but that's because -" Jemma interrupted their inspection to point up above the control panel. "Look. That section there. You ripped out the wires; those aren't getting a connection through."

Sure enough, just above the panel, above where Griffin had foregone finesse to get the job done, was an entire section where the wires had pulled loose. Someone was going to have to connect them. And whoever did it wasn't going to have any cover from the enemy fire when they stood to their full height to do it.

Fitz grumbled under his breath about jobs not being done right and started to move, but Griffin scrambled to her feet faster than him.

"You better cover me, Blake."

As Griffin reached the panel and began re-attaching wires faster than humanly possible, one of the agents, who must have been out of bullets as well, rushed their little group from the left, and Jemma reacted on instinct, extinguisher at the ready. She let loose with a spray of foam in his direction, obscuring his vision enough that Blake was able to knock him back - and out - just in time.

"Three more," Blake muttered as another agent took advantage of their situation to fire on them.

Fitz fired back, but he couldn't hit the other man behind the column where he was hiding, so he stopped shooting.

"Damn it," Griffin yelped, squatting on the floor in front of them and cradling her hand to her chest. "Those paintballs hurt worse than I thought." Across her right wrist and palm, crimson paint was smeared, appearing eerily like an open wound.

"It's not a fatal hit," Jemma said quickly, mainly for the benefit of the comms, in case anyone thought the hit meant Griffin should be taken out of the assessment. "We just need to, to wrap your hand."

"I don't know if I'd still have a hand after a hit like that," Griffin deadpanned.

"It would depend on the bullet." Blake shrugged when they all stared at him. "Just - bandage her. We have to get out of here. Time's almost up."

Jemma searched her tactical gear for medical supplies, but she couldn't find any. As the one person with a biology background, she knew standard procedure would usually designate her as the one to pack, at the very least, bandages, but the agents hadn't prepped them with anything of the sort. With a groan of frustration, she unclipped her vest and shrugged herself out of it.

"What 're you doin'?" Fitz's voice had an edge of panic to it, but Jemma was already tearing at the fabric lining the inside of her vest.

"No bandages," she explained as she reached inside and pulled out the extra piece of lining that she knew was made to help absorb moisture, twisting and securing it around Griffin's wrist to create a makeshift bandage. "Fitz, please," she sighed when he tried to help, "just get the door open."

He turned from her and quickly popped up, dodging fake bullets and paint spray to finish rerouting the wires and put them together.

None of them realized that while they were hesitating over Griffin that two of the three agents that were left working against them had crept closer, one of them taking aim at Fitz. It was Jemma who saw the agent raise his gun just as Fitz touched the wires to the connectors of the panel to get the blast door to rise.

"Fitz!"

He grinned, mistaking her fear for congratulations, though he hadn't actually got the door up yet, and flinched when she launched herself at him, ending up with three red splatters on her black t-shirt. Fitz turned without thinking and shot the other agent point blank, emptying the rest of his bullets into the other man's vest before dropping his gun.

"Simmons?"

"Griffin's right - I did not expect - that hurts. Oh god, that really hurts."

She sat down, looking at the splatters down her side and across her chest, having trouble catching her breath.

"Jemma." Fitz knelt next to her while Blake and Griffin gaped at her.

"There's still two enemy combatants left. Open the doors, Fitz."

"But-"

"Fitz." She gestured at the paint splatters sadly. "Fatal hits. Open the doors. Get the hostage out. I'd have - maybe two more minutes before I bleed out."

He shook his head, trying to push the thought away that the red paint was a very effective substitute for blood. He thought he might be sick. "We're no' leavin' you."

Blake fired on the agent that had been coming at them from the other side, and the man bounced back, hiding behind an overturned cabinet.

He and Griffin exchanged a look, and she climbed back up to the panel, finishing Fitz's job while he argued with Simmons, getting the blast doors to rise a foot from the ground before they jammed; it wasn't much but it was enough to get them out.

Blake handed the gun to Simmons.

"There's only a few shots left. Cover us?"

"Of course."

Griffin grabbed one arm of the mannequin, dragging him with her under the door, struggling under his weight with only the use of one hand, while Blake shoved Fitz in the direction of the door. Fitz angrily shook Blake off.

"We can't jus' leave her," he snapped, and while Jemma was busy emptying the rest of the team's bullets in the direction of one agent, the last fired on Blake and Fitz. Blake ducked just in time, making it under the door. Fitz didn't.

-o-

"Guess the SciOps kids couldn't hack it after all."

Something like a smile quirked at the edges of May's lips at his words.

"I wouldn't be so sure about that, Rumlow."

They were perfect. Loyal. Intelligent. Competitive. Able to think outside the box and stay within the rules. Perfect. She _was_ sure. She made a note in the file, designating them a good fit for mobile unit 616 even as Rumlow failed them.

-o-

_Four weeks later._

"I don' understand, sir. My field assessment -"

"You have a unique skill set, Dr. Fitz. I don't care about the assessment results." The agent's eyes crinkled at the sides when he smiled. "And your assessment results were very good, right up until the end. Happens to the best of us."

Fitz played with the wrench in his hands, not looking the older agent in the eye. "I - erm - can I think about it?"

"Sure." There was a pause while he set his card on the lab table before turning for the door. "Dr. Simmons asked the same thing. Not sure if she wants to do field work after all."

"You asked Simmons too? I thought - isn' it jus' one scientist per mobile unit, Sir?" Fitz's head perked up and he watched the agent pause in the doorway.

The man in the tailored suit chuckled and called over his shoulder. "They've given me a lot of rope. It's my team. I get who I want."

And with that he was gone.

Fitz reached forward and picked up the man's card.

_Phil Coulson. Level Seven._

-o-


End file.
